Demolition Matt - By Patty Kean

A blog? Is that a sailing term? I vaguely recall Stuart saying something about that “damned blog” … or was it Karen? It was definitely on the boat.

Now the story:

My son, Matt, had the pleasure of working with the Whitla Brothers for a year instead of attending school during the day when he was 14-ish ~ about 12 years ago.

Stuart would pick Matt up every morning: sun, rain, sleet, hail, snow blizzard ~ no matter. And, off they would drive off to one of the jobs. Stuart put Matt was in charge of demolition ~ a perfect fit. Every afternoon, Stuart would drop Matt off ~ exhausted and covered with some type of building material. As an interested mother, I would ask, “How was work, dear?” and here are some of Matt’s responses that have been burned into my memory:

“Mom, these guys listen to classical music on the job!” (Hear the horror…)

“Mom, these guys talk about books during lunch!” (Hear the incredulity…)

“Mom, I almost killed Mr. Whitla with an electric nail gun today, and he didn’t really yell too much at me.” (Hear the relief…)

“Mom, you can’t really tell that Mr. Whitla is the boss ~ he works harder than all of us put together,” (Hear the very important role modeling for a young man…)

And, finally, on one really trying day…

“Mom, I think I need to go back to school full time during the day. I just can’t ride into work with Mr. Whitla anymore. Do you know what type of music he listens to??? Mom, really, I just can’t listen to one more depressed woman singing country music…