Behind the scenes
by Yvonne DeCraw
As the end of the semester
gets closer, the pace of life gets
faster and faster.
Instead of strolling across
campus looking leisurely at the
new leaves and flowers,
perhaps you rush to your next
class — muttering under your
breath at the worker in a green
cart who slows you down.
Instead of eating a relaxed
lunch, maybe you growl at the
woman who takes a few
seconds too long to run your
I.D. card through the reader.
As you run to your
professor’s office before he
leaves for the day, you may
almost collide with a woman in
a maroon uniform cleaning the
glass doors.
Sure you’re busy, but these
behind-the-scenes people are
just that—people. Take time to
meet a few.
There are many jobs on this
campus done by behind-the-
scenes people — people who
aren’t student workers,
administrators or faculty.
They handle the cleaning,
gardening, cooking and other
kinds of services at A&M. But
most of the time we hardly
notice them.
A&M has 28 gardeners who
water, trim and maintain the
plants on this campus.
If you walk by Sully fairly
often, you’ve probably seen
James Charles Day.
J.C., as his friends call him, is
the gardener for the buildings
and area all along Military Walk.
He’s been working here since
July. His distinctive blonde hair
—long by Texas standards —
makes him conspicuous. He
and his wife moved here from
Austin last year.
Day says his wife talked him
into studying for a degree in
horticulture. Because Austin
had no convenient night
schools, they moved to Bryan-
College Station where he could
start taking classes at Blinn
College.
“I never thought about going
to college,” says Day, 26, who
got his GED from A&M this
year.
“It’s been nine years since
I’ve been to school. ”
Day says he’ll be starting
classes at Blinn this summer
with a couple of general
education classes. He’s
planning to work as a gardener
for A&M for two more years
before becoming a full-time
student.
He has been working with
plants for eight years. He says
his goal is to own his own
landscaping business.
Day treats the plants in his
area as if they were his own,
and is offended when one of
them gets hurt.
“This is going to be your area
and it’s going to be nice, ” is
what he says he tells the
residents of Hart Hall, alongside
Military Walk.
One of the fruitless crabapple
trees next to the dormitory was
crushed a while back. An eight-
inch shoot now grows from the
original trunk.
Day points to one of the
dorm windows to explain what
happened.
“Well, these gentlemen up
here on the top floor were
tossing down a bike, ” he says.
“It landed right on it. Crushed
it. Luckily there was another
one coming out before it broke
off.”
He says that he started
asking questions when he
found the tree one Monday
morning.
I just went up to this one
particular fellow and I said,
‘You broke my tree, didn’t
you?’ and he laid it all out on
me. I said, ‘Look I didn’t mean
to come off on you like that. I
was just being facetious. You
admitted it to me so now I know
who broke my tree.’
“It’s one of these things
where the younger ones do a
little more drinking. I remember
it — a little binge on a
weekend.”
Day says he can do almost
any job associated with plants.
“leanupkeep, lean
landscape, I can sell, I can plant,
I can graft. ”
But his approximately $5-an-
hour job doesn’t involve all
these tasks.
“Basically this is just a
grounds maintainance job, ” he
says. “There’s no glory.
“This campus has got like
crew, crew, crew, crew,” he
says gesturing toward different
areas of campus. “They’ve got
a crew for everything you do. ”
But when Day’s job gets
routine he always has people
who will say hello or stop to
talk.
“I meet a lot of nice people
who just come up and rap, ” he
says. “More people know my
name than I know their
names.”
Day is willing to talk about
politics, Texas, his three years in
the army, religion, the
environment, books and —of
course — plants.
He says the best way to care
for a houseplant is to find out
what kind it is, so you know
how much water, fertilizer,
space and sunlight to give it.
You’re not so likely to have
met Jo Jones. She works the
4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. shift.
During that time she cleans the
first and eighth floors of
Harrington Tower and part of
the fourth floor.
Jones says she’s been
working in the building for two
years and seven months.
“Hike it,’’she says,
“especially at night. There are
less people. It’s easier to work. ”
After a few minutes, Jones
relaxes, takes out a cigarette
and leans against the wall to
talk.
“We might get a pay raise, ”
she says. “We got one the year
before last. We get merit raises
and promotions. ”
She says the late hours don’t
bother her much.
“As long as you’re working,
you never realize how dark it’s
getting,” she says. “And then as
it gets darker it gets better
because it’s time to get off soon.
Jones, who doesn’t look all
that old, has a 21-year-old
daughter. She says she spends
her spare time raising mowing
her yard and raising her
daughter.
Before this she worked at the
Dairy Queen in Calvin —where
her home is — and as a sales
clerk.
“The Dairy Queen was
hectic, ” she said. “I was a
cook.”
She says buttons with the
Above left: A Grounds
Maintenance crew works
around the Gen. Ormond R.
Simpson Drill Field.
Right: James Charles Day
replants a shoot from a
damaged crabapple tree by
Hart Hall.