Front Porch: Celebrating life, two milestones at a time

This morning people everywhere are opening presents and gathering together with family and friends – observing the religious meaning of the season and/or celebrating the joys of all that happens this time or year.

Yes, all of that is warm and good. For us, however, we’ve got our collective family eye on next week, when we will be having the celebration of a lifetime, marking two very special events that don’t necessarily put a coda on our lives, but are certainly major long-term milestones.

We will be taking a little trip (and then another one) to mark two events that fall within days of one another – my 80th birthday and my husband’s retirement.

Bruce has worked for many years in the pest control industry, the past nearly 40 years operating a one-man business doing mostly specialty structural pest control work. He never wanted to supervise other people, so he has been everything from CEO to janitor, technician to manager of invoices in his own business.

The business has remained small as a result, deliberately. He did not rake in millions, but he made a good living for his family while being happy to help people resolve chronic and immediate issues requiring pest control responses.

My direct contribution to Bruce’s business (other than spending some of the earned money) has been as kind of the overall bookkeeper and tax preparer – an ironic and challenging task, as I firmly believe God either gifts you with spelling or adding, and I can spell. Sometimes I’ve gone along on out-of-town jobs and help pull hose.

Bruce’s work has been physically demanding. Hauling a 300-foot hose filled with water around buildings and up stairs. Elbowing himself through crawl spaces under buildings. Working on ladders to reach eaves three stories high. Tearing apart wooden structures. Removing wasp nests up under eaves or in the ground.

Fun fact: Pest control is considered an essential service, so during COVID, he was an essential worker. Certainly not a first responder or anything close, but an infestation where there are at-risk people is a bit of a big deal.

He has always had a bad back. If they had screening for scoliosis in the schools back in the 1950s when he was growing up in prestatehood Alaska, he surely would have been tagged. He played football in high school (head-first tackling was not only allowed, it was expected), and one injury had him hospitalized, paralyzed below the waist and in traction. He recovered … and rejoined the team, of course.

And through his adulthood, when he wasn’t working, he was skiing or sailing, bike riding or hiking.

But that pesky back has been catching up with him, and in recent years, he’s had to dial back. Various orthopedic and other measures have only provided temporary or no relief, so no more crawl spaces. Then no more drilling concrete. I finally stood in the doorway and threatened that if he fell from a high ladder and died, when he got home I would positively kill him. The high-ladder work went away.

Our son Carl said that for the past few years his father has been operating a boutique pest control company. We’ve all had a good laugh at the concept. But it was the beginning of a slow-rolling retirement.

Bruce explained his limitations to his customers, and, God bless them, most of them understood and stuck with him anyhow. Still, he felt like he was letting them down.

His pest control license needs to be renewed every six years, and his current one expires at the end of this year. About two years ago, he decided he would just let it lapse and that Dec. 31, 2025, would be the last day for Pettit Pest Control.

He is 82.

Bruce has loved working and never planned to retire. I thoroughly expected that he would die out there on a job somewhere in his 90s, and I’d get a phone call, provided I lived that long. He’s not a hobby guy, so we’ve got to figure out this next chapter.

I wanted to celebrate his career and his retirement, but, of course, he wouldn’t hear of it. Nothing would make him more uncomfortable than a party with him as the focal point. So, since my 80th birthday falls early in January, I was able to convince him that we could do a double celebration, and involve our sons.

He is well aware that since I had a stroke when I was in my 40s, which has shadowed the rest of my years, I’m mighty fortunate to have reached even age 50, not to mention 80. So, he agreed to the dual recognition of our achievements.

We decided on a short(ish) trip to San Diego with our son Sam and son-in-law Ryan. While one might think, why not Europe or Hawaii or Australia, I put forth that San Diego is a wonderful place, and it’s not the distance but rather the company that’s important here. Besides, I’m just weeks past hip replacement surgery, so I’m not anxious to venture too far from home just now (particularly in the winter), and it’s important to me that this special trip takes place proximate to the events being celebrated – so, January it is.

A second celebratory trip, later in the month, destination yet to be determined, will be with our older son.

And, for the first time in our lives, we are pulling out all the stops. Flying first class. Staying at the del Coronado Hotel. Arranging all sorts of events, some privately escorted. Once in a lifetime, so why not?

I mention one more thing about Bruce that so warms my heart. He began letting his customers know a few months ago that he would be retiring. And for many, he spent a good bit of time talking with them about steps they can take to solve/prevent their own particular infestations and pest control issues.

One person asked him what he planned to do in retirement. Bruce laughingly said he was going to rest his back in his recliner and eat popcorn. Next time he was at her house she presented him with a thank you card and a huge box of microwave popcorn from Costco.

Other customers have been giving him cookies, home-canned items and other home-cooked delicacies. Some have hugged him and remarked that they don’t know what they’re going to do without him. A few asked if he couldn’t delay just a little bit longer.

Bruce has always been accommodating and customer-centered and responded to messages seven days a week. He took a call on a weekend day from a man who was hospitalized with allergic reactions to bee stings and dispatched himself within hours to that man’s house to get rid of all nests before the man was discharged. He’s done jobs at 5 a.m. for some businesses that don’t want a pest control truck to be seen outside their places of business during the day. He has a regular monthly job he does at midnight for a care facility. One night he made an emergency call to a home to handle a problem, the home already decorated for a wedding to take place there the next day.

And so much more. No surcharge; just regular rates.

But best of all has been the mail that has been coming as 2025 winds down. Bruce has been receiving – not texts or emails – but notes from customers that are hand-written, stamped and mailed, thanking him for decades of reliable service, for conversations about alternative options, for shoot-the-breeze chats when there has been time, for being reliable, for coming out on holidays or at odd hours.

Yes, he is that guy. Perhaps a dying breed, I don’t know. I do know that I am so proud that he has been able to provide a living for his family on his own terms and that he is being thanked so warmly by his customers for the work as he closes the doors on his career.

And that we’ve lived long enough to celebrate each other with a special trip.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net