EDITOR’S NOTE | By Bret Bradigan

Learning the lessons of a lifetime, and beyond

Bret Bradigan, editor & publisher of Ojai Quarterly and Ojai Monthly

My first job application asked for prior experience. Not wanting to put “none,” I put “Assistant Cemetery Director.” I got that job as a field hand in a vineyard and produce farm, because, as the owner told me, he thought that was a clever way to put it.

Truth is, he knew my dad, who actually was the town gravedigger (among about a dozen other jobs – if you want to live in a small town and raise a family of eight, you had better be industrious). From the time I was about 12 until I left for the service at age 18, I was his assistant, and he was the cemetery director, so it wasn’t really a stretch at all to claim such a grand title.

I’ve since put that title on several dozen job applications. It was hard work, and from the time I was about 14 and showed any kind of initiative and responsibility, my father essentially turned over the digging to me. I must have dug at least 100 graves, including those for both my grandparents.

First, I would hitch up our rusty old trailer to our 1948 Farmall tractor, with its one cylinder engine (we’d put a coffee can on the exhaust stack to boost the engine compression) and load up the spades, shovels and the four maple planks with their iron brackets hat would rectangulary frame the gravesite. Then I would putt-putt through the main square of our little village of 700 or so, hoping that people would see me and think “Wow, what a mature young man.” Truth is, they probably pitied me, but I didn’t care. I felt like a grown man doing a grown man’s work for a grown man’s wage.

I learned a lot from the job. It was hard work, but there was a dignity to it that I’ve never really felt until I became editor & publisher of the Ojai Quarterly and Monthly, where I get to work with a talented group of writers and photographers who really care about their community.

Gravedigging taught me that we will all slip this mortal coil, everyone from Caesar and Napoleon to the most humble villager in the most humble village. Death is the Great Leveler.

It also taught me the value of hard work. There is a deep sense of satisfaction in a job well done, of purpose even if you look at it the right way. As a gravedigger, I took great pride in this final act of service, impeccably performed, for another human being’s mortal remains.

Far from being mind-numbing, the repetitive nature of the task was inspiring. It freed up my mind to think of the immense possibilities of the world beyond the hole I was digging, of insights into human nature, of the keen and poignant meaning of existence. It was a meditative space for a curious young man. It was the anvil where my determination to make something of my self was forged.

My father was one of those humble but proud villagers, a decorated World War II veteran who returned to his hometown from the Pacific to raise his family where he was raised, and his father and his father’s father before him. The gorgeous country of Chautauqua County in western New York was bred into his bones. When he died, hundreds of people attended his funeral. I guarantee you that there’s been many princes and captains of industry who were missed less.

I try to keep those lessons in mind as I do what I do in Ojai, this incredible town where the astonishing natural beauty is matched by our social infrastructure of caring citizens. Service above self isn’t just the Rotary Club motto, it’s a great way to find purpose and meaning. I learned that a long time ago, amid the sweat and mud and toil.