Old man take a look at my life--(Neil Young 1971)

While driving home this morning after spending the night at the union hall in Sparwood i turned on the radio. It was 7:30 AM and the first song to come on was this classic by Neil Young and yes it was kind of eerily coincidental. You see my father was also a union man and president of the United Mine Workers Local 2633 that represented the workers at Coleman Colleries. One particular moment that stands out in my mind is when i was still in high school and my father got a call later on in the evening that a worker had got caught up in a conveyor belt up at the Vicary mine  north of coleman. Later on in life i would have to deal with these type of situations myself as i have served both the United Mine Workers and the United Steelworkers over the last thirty years in various capacities. Many times during stressful periods in the workplace i have asked myself what drives you to continue to do this and i really dont have an answer other than to know what i have done for others. I was asking myself this same question a few years back while retuning home from a union school in Kimberely B.C. While driving home and reflecting on the  seminar, again asking myself why  i do this i got my answer. It was around 2:30 PM when i noticed an individual from the human resources department going home and checking out his property. Oh i am sure he had somebodys permission to leave the minesite at that time but did it matter he answered to nobody. On many occasions i have had to endure the hipocrosy of this same individual as he would lecture an employee because of their misgivings. Are signs like this coincidence or something deeper,  i am sure we have all had them on issues that are personal to us.