The Spider, the Hippie, and Siddhartha

How saving a spider almost cost me a job but launched me on a journey

Image by 6847478\ from Pixabay

Back in the early 70s, I worked for a pipe manufacturer in Hamilton Ontario. We made all kinds of pipes: sewer pipes, water pipes, and pipes for pipelines. My job was to load these long pipes onto a machine and pump water into them under intense pressure to ensure there were no leaks or imperfections. Most of the time they passed the test but occasionally one would blow out. It was always a noisy and unnerving experience and while I didn’t wish for pipes to blow, it did break the soul-numbing boredom of the job.

Because I worked on an assembly line, it was necessary for me to stay at my station. Unless we were on a break or lunch, we had to stay at our controls to keep everything moving. However, one morning I spied a long wispy thread floating down from the ceiling struts high above me. At the end of it was a large spider. Whether it was the sun’s light or the light radiating from the blast furnaces that tempered the pipes, the spider appeared to glow in the smoky gloom. Judging from its trajectory, it was headed for the ovens where the newly formed and still hot pipes came rolling out.

I turned off my machine, grabbed a broom, and headed off to save the spider from certain doom, confident that I could save it and return to my post before too many pipes piled up waiting for pressurizing. Braving the heat from the furnace, I intercepted the drifting creature on the end of my broom and gently lifted it away from danger.

Now that I had it, I had to take it to a safe place. “Squash it!” someone shouted over the din of the machines. Looking around me, I realized that stopping my machine had attracted the attention of the men who worked around me. But now, my actions of saving a spider had drawn concerned fascination if not outright incredulity. Holding the strand of web aloft in my hand, keeping the spider from touching the ground, everyone watched me as I made the long walk to the open loading doors at the far end of the building. There, the spider and I emerged into the harsh light of the mid-morning sun. I squinted looking for a safe space to set the spider down. Next to an oil drum, I spied a patch of brown weeds. I released the web and its passenger into its sanctuary.

As I walked back to my post, some of the men slow-clapped me. A few shook their heads in disbelief. I suddenly found myself questioning my actions. Red-faced, I returned to my post, noting the pile of pipes awaiting me. The man at the furnace’s exit threw a few expletives at me for holding him up. But worse was waiting for me. Standing at my controls was the foreman. “Where the hell have you been?” he shouted. He didn’t look like he was in any mood to hear about the spider and how I’d rescued it.

“I had to do something,” I said, which I hoped he’d figure meant I had to use the toilet. Whether he did or not, he continued to blast me, including threatening to fire me. I lowered my head and apologized. “Idiot,” he shouted walking away. I was left feeling grateful that he hadn’t carried out his threat, yet I also felt elated — as if I’d just carried out an act of espionage, my small gesture of defiance in this mechanical hell.

As I started to load up the next pipe, I caught the man who worked at the machine after me staring. Everyone called him “Hippie” on account of wearing his long hair in a ponytail. “Sorry,” I shouted, waving my arm in an apologetic gesture. I half expected him to heap further ridicule on me. Instead, he surprised me with a thumbs-up and a wry smile.

In the months that I’d worked in the pipe factory, Hippie had never spoken to or even acknowledged me, but a few days later he walked up to me at break time and handed me a tattered paperback, its cover smudged with dirt. “Read this,” he said before walking away. I looked down at the book’s cover. “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. I took the book home and read it, finishing it within a few days. That book changed me in a way no book had done before.

I offered to return the book to Hippie but he told me to pass it on to someone else. The following week, I quit my job, bought a ticket to Europe, packed the book away in my knapsack and began what turned out to be an enlightening life-long journey. A couple of weeks into my travels, I left the book on a table in a café in Rome with a note asking the next reader to enjoy it before passing it on to someone else. As I set the novel down on the table, I imagined the lives it would touch and silently thanked Hippie, Herman Hesse, and the big, fat spider who had made my life-changing journey possible.