Assistant Editor
It's a little unnerving for a reporter to stroll into Cohoes Catholic School on a story assignment and bump into someone she borrowed lunch money from when she wore a small plaid jumper.
But after 25 years as a custodian for the Cohoes Catholic schools, David Dame never forgets a face.
"Kids come back and say, `Hey, Dave, remember me?'" he said, chuckling. "I say, `Well, you weren't bald and you didn't have a moustache when you were in the eighth grade....'"
Going gray
Mr. Dame himself is instantly recognizable to former students. Even after a quarter-century of mopping floors and mowing lawns while students mill around him, only his beard is going gray. He claims that his own teenage children, Jennifer and David, caused that small sign of age -- that the CCS students have nothing to do with it.
A Cohoes native who attended St. Agnes School and parish there himself, Mr. Dame told The Evangelist that he never intended to spend his working career as a custodian. He was originally trained as a clerk/typist in the military and worked for the Troy Record newspaper.
But when he was laid off from a job, Mr. Dame started cleaning St. Agnes Church for then-pastor Rev. Thomas Powers. That led to an interview for a custodial position at St. Agnes School (which merged with St. Marie's to become CCS in 1996. The two parishes merged as well to become Holy Trinity in 1998).
Dialogue
He could recall the interview nearly word for word:
* "I've never done this work before," he said to then-principal Sister Maureen Moffitt, CSJ.
* "After the kids eat lunch, what do you think you'd do?" she asked.
* "Clean up the cafeteria," Mr. Dame told her.
* "You've got the job," she replied.
Changing times
Back then, the custodian's job included refilling mimeograph machines with messy purple ink. But on a recent morning when The Evangelist visited, Mr. Dame was working on getting a malfunctioning computer to connect to the internet.
"I don't know how I became the internet person," he remarked. "I don't even remember."
Whether fixing a computer or mopping a floor, Mr. Dame likes his job. For one thing, he noted wryly, he gets to know the kids who are always in trouble because he sees them in the principal's office so often.
Several generations of children have turned to him for lunch money, too. "If I have a quarter, I'll give it to them," he said. "I'm not the richest person in the world, but my kids never went hungry."
Sad moments
Mr. Dame spoke with some sadness about the number of students who come from broken homes. He joked that he and his wife, Barbara, have a successful marriage because they rarely see one another: She works part-time and he works nights at a restaurant to put his daughter through college.
Other changes in school life are more serious. Mr. Dame said that he now only hugs students who hug him, and noted that he was even chastised by a parent this year for jokingly calling her child by the name of a television character.
But Mr. Dame still keeps a box of small toys in a janitor's closet to give out as treats to children who are extra good and posts their thank-you notes on the door. He still takes the time to tie trailing shoelaces on tiny feet and tries to remember students' names.
"I consider myself a helper, rather than a custodian," he explained.
Recently, he was using a day when the children were out of school to buff floors, clean classrooms, fix a broken window and hope that a spring snow squall wouldn't mean he'd have to shovel.
"Retirement? Good God, no!" he said, startled to be asked the question. "I'm too young to think about that. Ask me in another 10 years."