Mac
Mac peered over his machine.
His frantic foreman missed
the wiser-than-you’ll-ever-be
smile.
Mac was never disrespectful.
But nobody messed with
Shop Steward Billy McGuire,
WWII U.S. Army
Veteran.
I caught the big guy’s dry smile myself,
radical know-it-all I was
Back in ’73.
But Mac was never, ever mean.
Truth be known,
big guy had a streak of kindness
running straight down his broad back.
One of those hard-soft, Golden Rule,
“bless-his-heart” folk,
a gravel-voiced shaman,
fix’in to heal even the shop’s
most tenacious fools.
Mac wasn’t like other mill rats,
gnawing only on the sports page
as their machines traversed,
then the racing sheet,
calling their bookies,
forsaking the Baltimore Sun
for grease and oil.
No, Mac revered the whole paper,
even hovered over the editorial page,
that smile leaving every swing’in dick
guessing what he was thinking
‘bout the day’s news,
‘bout damned near anything at all.
Why did this sage of the shop floor
spare me, the Jewish radical,
my dose of derision or contempt?
When given their choice,
why did black men,
fresh arrivals,
integrating the “white-man’s” shop,
pick Mac to learn from?
One scorching shift,
amid grease and oil,
frantic foremen,
the daily news,
Mac swapped out his smile,
gently pried the lid off his secret,
a confidence,
brutal,
delicate,
Unfathomable.
“My unit liberated Buchenwald.”
Len Shindel began working at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point Plant in 1973, where he was a union activist and elected representative in local unions of the United Steelworkers, frequently publishing newsletters about issues confronting his co-workers. His nonfiction and poetry have been published in the “Other Voices” section of the Baltimore Evening Sun, The Pearl, The Mill Hunk Herald, Pig Iron, Labor Notes and other publications. After leaving Sparrows Point in 2002, Shindel, a father of three and grandfather of seven, began working as a communication specialist for an international union based in Washington, D.C. The International Labor Communications Association frequently rewarded his writing. He retired in 2016. Today he enjoys writing, cross-country skiing, kayaking, hiking, fly-fishing, and fighting for a more peaceful, sustainable and safe world for his grandchildren and their generation. Shindel is currently working on a book about the Garrett County Roads Workers Strike of 1970 www.garrettroadstrike.com.