Jim Green:  "A Retired Janitor"

Interview by Russ Rehm

            "Just remember, Russ, that's the way I want to be remembered," Jim said to me, right before we hung up:  "A Retired Janitor."  When Jim and Mary go on one of their many expensive cruises, Jim always enjoys watching the facial expressions around the dining room table, when they ask Jim what he did before he retired; and he replies, "Well, Mary is a retired banker, and I'm a retired janitor!"  Silence! 

            Jim Green is the Great American "Rags-to-Riches" Story.  Born in West Virginia, the son of a coal miner -- no, I'm not making this up -- when the coal ran out, the family migrated to the slums of East Pasco.  You remember, where "those other people" lived.  On the other side of the railroad tracks!  There the poor Green Family lived in those cheap Navy row houses. 

            Like millions of other Americans, they had gone West looking for work.  Jim's Dad had originally gotten on as a welder working on the Ice Harbor Dam, but when that work ran out, his Dad got a job as a janitor at Pasco Junior High School, so Jim could finish his senior year with us.

            You probably remember Jim as the manager of the football team, but there's a lot more to it than that.  He and Coach Till went fishing together, so after Jim blew out his right knee playing football, Coach Till asked him to become the senior manager of not only the football team, but also the basketball and baseball teams.  Jim spent a huge part of his high school experience picking up wet towels!

            But there's more to it than that. He and several other guys were hired to stay after, and help the janitor clean up the High School.  So, while you and I were at home watching TV, Jim was working.  Like he says, "I'm a retired janitor."

            I did some research.  It's amazing!  Did you know that a vast army of Americans go to work, when we go to bed, to clean every building in America?  Being a janitor is a huge industry!  When Jim sold his company Aetna Maintenance Incorporated in 2012, it was producing income of $22 million per year and had 2200 employees!  Jim and Mary Williams now live on a golf course in Dade City, Florida, 20 miles north of Tampa.

            Jim wanted to be a history teacher and coach.  Until he learned how much they make.  Jim was already poor, so he got a two-year college degree in business management.  Smart move, Jim!  Then he went back to work as a janitor, with his dad in Cleveland, Ohio, because he had to feed his wife and kids. 

            But there's more to the story than that.  He was fat, introverted, and wore worn dirty jeans.  There were a bunch of us freshmen like that.  Trailer park and project kids, wandering the PHS halls that first lonely year.  But then, Jim says, "I forced myself to come out of it.  By my senior year I was tired of being who I was!"  Jim changed Jim.  You might say, he cleaned himself up. The janitor working on a janitor.  Enough so that he was elected by one vote on the second ballot as our second semester Senior Class President, while I was elected Senior Class President the first semester!  P.S. -- I just learned how that "really happened", sixty-one years after the fact.  Another story for another time. 

            Now at 78 years old, Jim works out daily, has low blood pressure, plays golf, and weighs 175 pounds.  No longer fat, when he attended our 55th Year Class Reunion, no one recognized him.  He remembers Janet Cruzen asking, "Did you go to school with us?"  Now, picture our "Poor Janitor Jim", on the racetrack at Daytona, in his Challenger SRT (the initials mean Street Racing Technology)!  Life is what we make it, heh?  P.S. -- Please don't ask me how much I weigh or what I drive!

            Kids, it's called "WORK"; plain old hard work.  If you want it, go work for it.  Jim certainly did.  Working 48 straight hours pushing snow out of parking lots in Cleveland, Ohio.  Catnapping in the cab in the freezing cold.  I hated it, he says.  After six years, we moved to Florida.

            Who is the "we"?   As you might imagine, two highly successful daughters, one grandson, and a three-year-old great grandson.  But life is never easy.  Along the way, he had four marriages and four divorces.  On the phone we said to one another, "You just get back up and keep on going.  Life is never easy."  When I first called Jim and asked him how he was doing, he fired back, "Healthy as hell!"  And, "Very happy!"

            We learned so much those four years.  Important things in the classroom, like how to write cursive, respect; but how so much more did we learn outside the classroom!  Like hard work, the value of relationships, and how to win playing the game of life.  We lived in the best time in human history, in the best country, among the best of people. . . in my opinion.  And I hold up before you Jim Green, the son of a coal miner, to prove my point.  One of many in our class, he is the rags-to-riches American Dream Story. 

            In conclusion, permit me, please, to say a personal word to Jim.  Jim, you wanted to be a history teacher, but in a profound way you are.  One of my most favorite quotes from history is by a man named Jesus, who said, "He who is greatest among you must be the servant of all."   Thinking about all those dirty locker rooms, classrooms, hallways, I'd like to paraphrase Jesus, by saying, "He who is greatest among you, must be the JANITOR of all."  And you were!  On behalf of the Class of 1964, thank you Jim for your service!