Do you ever wonder how much pain you could stand? Me neither, but some people you ask that question and they get a faraway look in their eyes.

Feeling pain was never a priority of mine. In fact, following the death of my parents, I got good at not feeling it.

A bachelor uncle raised me because I had no other relatives. We lived in an old house he had inherited from my grandparents. He kept the roof in good repair so it never leaked, but the rest of the house already looked scary and run-down when I moved in. I had my pick of several dusty, cluttered rooms upstairs and eventually spread my things evenly between them. Bats swooped through my open windows on summer nights and the upstairs was full of the odor of hazelnuts drying in bushels in the next room, and the musty smell of army-surplus camping equipment. Chickens had free run of the property. There was a junk pile and a wood pile, cows and an old motor bike he used to give me rides on sometimes, when we could get it started.

It was paradise for a small boy but then school started and with it the ostracism. It never stopped all through school, and in fact worsened when the tractor company moved its warehouse and assembly plant back east and my uncle, over 50 and unable to find a decent job, became a self-employed window-washer and recycler.

After school, I would go on his rounds with him, parking at the loading docks and back entrances of the businesses around town, flattening the cardboard boxes piled outside and quickly loading them into his old Ford pickup. The furniture store was the best, we could get half a truckload there alone on a good day. Least favorite, for me, was the Dairy Queen, where the boxes were small and greasy and where, when I was older, I could hear the voices of my classmates having a good time out front, and see their cars.

One rainy Saturday, we drove to the Oregon coast where my uncle cut his hand deeply digging razor clams. We drove to the doctor for stitches. His skin was so tough the doctor broke the first needle trying to sew him up. His hands were like paws. A recycler needs tough skin, otherwise you