A Different Kind Of Genius

When I was young, my father was ashamed of his humble factory job. Years later, when I visited his workplace, I discovered pride.

- Connie Schultz

MY FATHER NEVER WANTED his children to know what he did for a living.

Dad worked in maintenance for the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, in Plant C. Perched on the shore of Lake Erie, it sucked him in at sunrise and spat him out at dusk. Sometimes my mother would take my siblings and me to the public beach in our hometown of Ashtabula, Ohio. She’d gather us round and point to the smokestacks farther down the shoreline, coughing clouds into the sky.

“Wave to Daddy!” she’d yell.

Four little hands would shoot into the air.

I never knew what Dad did at the plant, but I saw the toll that 34 years of hard physical labor took on him. He had surgery on his shoulder, his hand, his spine. At 48, he had his first heart attack and bypass. He retired in 1993, right after his last kid graduated from college. But the damage was done. A few years later, another surgeon shoved stents into his arteries. The next heart attack killed him. He was 69.