All of them were immigrants, of course.
A Celtic knot of humanity, my mother’s people arrived from England and Ireland, torn from the County called Down and the Staffordshire hills by their longing for a better life. Working their way from Virginia to Kentucky and Tennessee, they camped on the Texas prairies and followed the rivers back to Iowa. They told stories of their patriarch, David, who panned for gold in Colorado and fought in the Civil War from Vicksburg to the Rio Grande. They clucked over Ina, David and Annie’s red-haired, purple-clad daughter who carried hand-written manuscripts of novels in her suitcase, married her stepson and disappeared into the depths of a Hawaiian pineapple plantation.
Later, there was Mabel, heart-breakingly beautiful and my mother’s mother, who fell in love with Ed from Nebraska but never consented to live on that prairie, nor in the efficient if inelegant soddies built from its soil. A wonderful combination of grit, romanticism and stolidity, they could be any American family, laboring to bring their long-held dreams to fruition.
Maternal Grandparents and Great-Grandparents
My father’s parents came from Sweden. Slightly more stolid and far less romantic than the crew pictured above, Ella and Alf didn’t meet until both had moved to Minneapolis in the early 1900s. After their marriage they continued on to Iowa, where the coal mines offered steady work. They raised a large family, including my Aunt T, adored the few grandchildren who came along, and lived a quiet, predictable Midwestern life.
Both sides of the family were filled with “working class” people – farmers, coal miners, carpenters and handymen who perfectly embodied class consciousness. Starting their new lives on the lower rungs of the social and economic ladder, they were determined to move upward. Stung by the shanty-Irish label, they imagined a lace-curtain life. Injured by mine accidents or disabled by black lung, they vowed never to allow their children into the mines. Respectability was their dream, security their passion, and they lived to inculcate those passionate dreams into the souls of their children.
Limited by circumstance rather than ability, my own parents never received more than a high-school education. When that lack prevented my father from moving up the corporate ladder, he was stung, and became determined I never should endure such humiliation. Having experienced true poverty during the depression, my mother saw education as a meal-ticket, a means of ensuring economic security. Like many parents of the time, she was pleased to see me take joy in the learning process, but joyless learning would have done just as well. After all, the point of a degree was to impress future employers.
So it was that, encouraged by my parents, I became educated, or at least the first of my family to attend college. One degree led to another, and both brought an assortment of respectable jobs. They also made possible a different sort of education as I worked among masters of office politics, backbiting, dishonesty and bureaucratic maneuvering. Eventually, I’d had enough. Telling a friend, “If I ever want to go into politics, I’ll run for office”, I threw my high heels into the back of the closet, moved aboard a boat, printed five hundred business cards and went shopping for sandpaper. I was about to become a varnisher.
As I began working on the docks and in the boatyards, my mother alternated between chagrin and terror. ”What do I tell people when they ask what you do?”, she’d fuss. “Tell them I varnish boats,” I suggested. “If that doesn’t sound fancy enough, tell them I’m a brightwork specialist.” Not easily put off, she tried a different tack. “For this, you got all that education?” Now, I had an answer. ”If I hadn’t received all that education,” I grinned, “I wouldn’t have been smart enough to turn myself into a varnisher and start hanging around in boatyards.” Sometimes it tickled me to realize I’d become a scandal and an offense, a sterling example of downward mobility, but my mother was not amused.
On the other hand, boatyards and boatyard workers terrified her more than my occupation embarassed her. Every night, something new was added to the litany of possible horrors. “They’re going to find you on a boat with your throat slit.” “You’ll get pushed off a dock and drown.” “You’ll fall from a mast and break your neck.” ”Those people are going to take advantage of you.”
Coffee Break in the Boatyard ~ Laura Ragland/SunsetSailor
“Those people”, of course, were understood by my mother and some of my friends to be the very embodiment of the stereotypical laborer: uneducated, insensitive, unwilling to better themselves and morally corrupt. The reality was quite different. Not everyone in the yards was honest, but most people were. Not everyone spoke English, but we learned to communicate. Some men weren’t sure about working alongside women, but women who could do the work were accepted. There was less profanity than I’d heard in most offices, less gossip and far more easy humor. When someone drank too much and landed in jail, his friends bailed him out. If someone without resources had a need, others extended a hand. Always there was a general willingness to give a day’s work for a day’s pay, an enjoyment of the camaraderie of the workplace and a deep pride in producing quality work.
As time went on, I began to pay closer attention and found qualities I admired in boat workers popping up elsewhere - among construction workers, framing carpenters, farmers and mechanics. After Hurricane Ike swept through Texas, the steady stream of tree trimmers, linemen, crane operators, electricians, divers and salvage experts who followed in his wake exhibited many of the same qualities. Coming from every part of the nation, as a group they were direct, open, confident and proud of their skills. Problem solvers at heart, they didn’t whine about conditions or complain about the difficulties piled up around them. Effective and professional, they’d come to do a job and when they left, the job was done.
Getting the Lay of the Land ~ Ginnie Hart
Watching them work was mesmerizing. Often using nothing more sophisticated than two-way radios and hand signals, they moved, heaved and unpiled buildings, boats and piers with an understated grace usually reserved for symphony conductors. Their work was their “team-building exercise”, and nothing that could harm the team was tolerated.
On this Labor Day weekend I can’t help but think of them all, and ponder how grateful I am to have had the chance to be working among them. The working men and women of this country – stereotyped, ridiculed for lack of formal education or lack of manners, called by dismissive names and often imagined to be something they are not – are still, to a degree very few people appreciate, the people who make this country work. They are the ones who have a visceral understanding of cause and effect. They know if they’re inattentive a co-worker may die, they’ve seen that human error can mean the economic collapse of a company, and far more often than we imagine they have little tolerance for sloppy work or nasty behavior.
Nearly a year ago, as I stood watching the process of recovery after Ike, a fellow standing next to me on the bank said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Thinking he was referring to the boats tossed and tumbled and strewn around us, I asked, “What? The damage?” “No,” he said. “Not that. It’s the guys. I’ve never seen so much hard work look so easy and even enjoyable. Those guys really have class.”
“Yes,” I said at the time and think again today. “They really do. They have all the class in the world.”
An Inch at a Time ~ Linda Leinen
Linda, this is just lovely. It makes me wish I had the same level of vivid information about my own family background (though I garnered some for a family history class I took once in grad school).
Your description of choosing to work with your hands after turning your back on office politics made me smile – and reminds me how little skill I have developed in the true arts of making things work in the world. Workers of the world – thank you.
Mary Ellen,
I wish I had been more attentive to the family when the ones who carried the history were still with us. So many things we took for granted – even the recipes, in many cases – never were written down, and now are lost. But the bits and pieces that remain are precious, and sometimes putting life back together like a puzzle has its own rewards.
I suspect many of the younger ones no longer hear history reverberating when they hear the words “workers of the world”, and even fewer would be able to complete the original phrase. It made me smile, not only for the delightful “thank you” tucked at the end, but because I never hear it without thinking of one of those funny Berkeley bumper stickers from “those” years. I suspect the variation will give you a smile, too. The sticker boldly proclaimed, “Intellectual Coolies of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your Mentors”!
A happy weekend to you!
Linda
I totally relate to your boat yard experience and your mother’s reaction to it. Growing up on Cape Cod in the ’50s, all I wanted to do was work on boats. That, of course, was totally unacceptable to my parents despite the fact that for hundreds of years, on the paternal side, there were dozens of ship captains.
So, I went to college and studied lots of things that really didn’t interest me. I never graduated and am one semester short because I refused to take certain required courses. Most of these were required simply to provide work for mediocre professors who were tenured and putting in the years necessary for retirement. I also discovered that the vast majority of “book learning” is totally unrelated to preparing people to deal with “real-life” situations. For example, since leaving high school in 1960 I think I actually could have used algebra, maybe, TWICE.
I was fortunate in the work force because I chose to work by putting words on paper and a college education in no way prepares a person to be a writer unless you want a career as a foot-note specialist. Working as a writer, magazine editor, etc. was socially acceptable to my parents. Working on boats was not.
At the age of 30 and with divorce papers freshly in hand I decided that it was time to start a new life. I’d done things to that point to satisfy everyone but myself. I got a job as a deckhand on a boat and a couple of years later had my 100-ton license. I spent the next 18 years working on that license. I circumnavigated the eastern half of the United States, worked as a mate on a tug boat in the Mississippi River, ran an 85′ sailboat on the French Riviera for three years and sailed across the Atlantic during that time before spending another 15 years repairing and restoring boats.
During all that time whenever my father and I happened to get together, and it was rare, he could never resist decrying my decision to not finish college and to choose to work on boats. One day, to end our screaming match, and a prelude to not seeing each other for the next decade I said, “let’s see…I’m anchored in a secluded cove with someone’s multi-million dollar investment. The wind’s blowing a full gale. The anchor’s dragging and I’m about to be flung on to a lee shore. What do I do? Go out on the bow and scream ‘You can’t do this to me…I’ve got a college degree.’”
oldsalt,
While I landed outside the academic environment, I’ve never questioned the value of education, and cherish the teachers and professors I had who stimulated my love of learning. I certainly agree that a college degree isn’t necessary to be a writer. But education? Of course it’s important, if writing is to reach beyond cliches and shallowness. Or, so I think. Besides, book-learning can take a lot of forms. That hundred-ton license certainly required a little time with the books. And I never “got” algebra and geometry until I started sailing, met the lovely time/speed/distance forumula and started plotting courses. (Who knew that triangles could be so useful?)
I must say your hypothetical situation gave me a good laugh. Waving a diploma at a storm’s never going to do much good. It reminded me of one of my favorite Tristan Jones quotations. It’s a bit long, but apropos here:
Thanks so much for stopping by to read, and thanks especially for adding your wonderful story.
Linda
They have all the class in the world.
Absolutely true.
I love how detailed and well-worked your posts are. They’d make good feature articles in magazines.
damyantig,
Thank you so much. “Well-worked”, indeed. I do try to provide something worth my reader’s time. I’ve been toying with the idea of submissions to other publications. We’ll see what the future brings.
It is a holiday here, so I have the luxury of reading and writing a bit. Perhaps I will do some of my own “destroying” – your observation that it’s sometimes necessary is so true.
Linda
What a wonderful post, Linda.
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up next to a boat harbor. Commercial watermen docked and worked on their boats there. Sixty years ago my father was one of them. To this day he can tell you who owned which boat and to whom it was sold and where it is now or where it went to die. He talks about oysters the size of his hand and fish that couldn’t wait to fill his nets. I hope I haven’t mentioned all this before.
The lighthearted rapport among the fishermen and their willingness to help one another was touching. When Dad had his stroke, an old waterman came to sit with him.
It was amazing to watch as these two ham-handed men held hands as he told Dad that he had worked on his boat years ago because Dad had paid him a man’s wage while he was still a boy. He talked to Dad about how much he had learned from him and how grateful he was to him. It was so intimate that I could barely watch.
Your writing always stirs something, but it is especially true today. Thank you.
Bella
Bella,
You hadn’t shared those details before, but even if you had, it would make no difference. Repetition is one way that stories take shape and survive. Children seem to know this instinctively. How many parents have become heartily sick of Barney or The Pokey Little Puppy because of their child’s love of repetition? And how many who are our age have smiled and listened to a parent (or even a friend, now!) telling that story we’ve heard 500 times? I don’t mind the repetition. If we insist on novelty at all costs, pretty soon we’re stuck with “Survivor”, “John and Kate” and “Dog, the Bounty Hunter”.
In any event, now I know your father and I have something in common. There’s a high bridge here crossing the channel that leads to the Bay. When I drive across it, I always glance out to the water. If one of “my” boats is out there, I can spot it, nearly to the horizon. It’s not that I can read the name across the stern. It’s that each boat has a certain “look”, a certain way of being in the water.
As for your story about your Dad and his friend, there’s nothing I can add except to say, “Yes. That’s the way it is.” It’s a world and a way of being I prefer.
Linda
I cannot go away without stopping here first; you are a ritual of my Sunday nights! I enjoyed the mini-family history you provided–there is much fodder there, and now I know that you have a true ancestor in Ina: all you need to do is wear purple and “disappear into the depths of a pineapple plantation”
Your piece is a reminder that this country was not built by dealmakers or traders of nonexistent funds, but by the miners, the lumberjacks, the shipbuilders, the farmers. Especially the farmers. But I am biased. The short response is that we should value those who work with their hands as well as their minds; that certain kinds of labor are “menial” only to those who do not undertake it; that humility and humanity, camaraderie and skill, are more important–and more lasting–than the latest trend, the latest movie, the latest (gasp!) book.
There was a time when the phrase “the salt of the earth” was a sincere compliment. It should be resuscitated as such.
ds,
Another reader mentioned the web definition of salt of the earth: “…unpretentious, uncomplicated, devoted, loyal, earnest, and honest. They are hard-working folks, who add value to the lives of others.” The value they add is incalculable, even as they are increasingly undervalued by those around them.
One tendency in our national life and governance which distresses me beyond words is the increasing willingness to place people in positions of authority who have no actual experience of the departments they are to oversee. An acquaintance who works in a state department of agriculture once took an informal poll of his co-workers. Fully 80% never had planted a garden, worked a field or been responsible for the care of any animal apart from dogs, cats and the occasional bird. On the national level, I suspect that percentage would be higher. When the policy and decision-makers have no personal knowledge of their field, the consequences can range from unhappy to dire.
As for Ina? I love her to pieces, and you can expect to hear more of her. I have one photo – a tintype – showing Ina and her sisters with their parents, and one of the rural, one-room school in which she taught. From what I’ve been able to gather, the word “irrespressible” was made for her!
Linda
That is the kind of class I am interested in.
My Indian friend rauf suggests that college students spend summers living with tribals to learn the art of survival – raising food, building things, fixing things, understanding natural cycles, etc. A piece of paper that says you passed subject x, y and zed means a little bit, but it doesn’t teach you about life. Being an academic adviser in an English department, I see a few professors who have done nothing but academics their whole lives, and they are not people I generally enjoy being around. It’s the ones who have other interests and pursuits who interest me, like the ones with a veggie garden, or chickens, or who have worked in other capacities.
I have been fascinated by your profession since first coming here, and I think of you every so often as I drive along and see a wooden boat in someone’s yard. And when Ginnie was staining and varnishing our Adirondack chairs before the wedding, we thought of you. I am a lazy laborer, but I highly value the laborers of our land.
Oh, one more thing. From the time I was young, if we went to Chicago to visit my sister and we lost our way on foot somewhere in the Loop, I went up to the construction workers to ask directions, not a business person. Even in all their hard work, there was a sense that they were more in tune with the rhythm of the world around them than the suits walking briskly along.
Ruth,
Rauf and I might have something in common here. As I mentioned to a friend who wrote about the history of Labor Day,
I smiled to think of you being wise enough to ask construction workers for directions. Generally, I’ve found laborers to be aware of the world around them, while those we call “suits” are less so. I had a very telling exchange with a trucker from Dallas while we still were pulling the trashed boats out of the water after Ike. He’d not done boat hauling before, nor been around marinas. In the course of our conversation he said, “One thing’s pretty clear. There are boaters, and there are people who own boats, and they’re not the same thing.”
He’s exactly right, and an important part of the difference between the two groups is their relationship to the world in which those boats float.
I hope you have time to enjoy that world today!
Linda
Descendants of working class and immigrants would describe the majority of us here! My great grandfather came to the United States in 1925 while my great grandmother stayed behind, her daughters eating sawdust when nothing else was in the larder. My “Opa” was a bricklayer and found work a plenty in Milwaukee, and after a year he sent for his family.
Though my grandma’s dreams were about that college education, her father wouldn’t think of such foolishness, and she married my grandpa when she was 20. She and my grandpa survived the depression by working hard and canning vegetable and saving everything recyclable and turning it in for pennies.
She was always taking night classes, reading, gladly serving on jury duty, and asking me questions about what I was learning. It was simply expected that I would go to college.
They taught me that education was something every person needed, that it should never be taken for granted or flaunted, and regardless of your degree you should always work hard, and never go up or down the steps with empty hands because surely something had to be moved!
What would we do in a restaurant without the cook and the waiters? on the street without pot hole fillers? in the grocery store without the farmers?
We all labor in one form or another – so thanks to each of us! And thank you, Linda, for laboring over this story for our pleasure.
“…Ina, David and Annie’s red-haired, purple-clad daughter who carried hand-written manuscripts of novels in her suitcase, married her stepson and disappeared into the depths of a Hawaiian pineapple plantation…” I want to hear more of that story!!
qugrainne,
I’d forgotten the “stair rule”! I lived in a two story house through grade school, and that was an absolutely inviolable rule. Everything to go up or down was tucked near the stairs, and you were responsible for carrying something, always. The boating equivalent requires that any person who goes below decks always inquire before coming back up, “Anyone up there need anything?”
And your question is so appropriate:
Without those anonymous, nameless and often faceless workers, life would be radically different. Labor Day is a wonderful opportunity to notice them, to see them as people and not just as parts of the intricate system that serves our needs. Several years ago, without even thinking, I noticed the name on a young grocery store sacker’s name tag. As I prepared to leave, I thanked him by name. The expression on his face was priceless, and taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten – a ten second exchange can restore someone’s sense of self. That’s a lesson for every day, not just Labor Day.
As for Ina ~ she’ll pop up again. I don’t know much at all about her, but what I know intrigues me
Linda
I guess I’m lucky. I got to meet you in person where you worked. Some perhaps do not realize you are “Ina”. Your pineapple plantation is just a forest of masts and leaves of Dacron.
Ken
Hi, Ken,
I’m so happy to have you stop by ~ I do hope all is well in your life.
That image is wonderful – I’d never thought about how true it is. I’ve disappeared into my little forest, and am happily living my life. My biggest regret is that we don’t have any of Ina’s writings – only stories about her writing process. From the sounds of things, that was interesting enough in itself!
We’re still slogging through summer, here. Hot and humid goes on and on, and “endless summer” is becoming a bit of a curse. Hope your end of summer’s more pleasant!
Linda
Linda: I never meant to imply that there is no absolute value in education. Just that much of it is misdirected.
Tristan Jones is one of my favorites, but as far as I’m concerned no one touches Joseph Conrad:
That’s from “Mirror of the Sea,” the closest thing Conrad did to an autobiography and a MUST READ for any water person. What’s impressive about Conrad is that English was his THIRD language after Polish and French. I doubt that any native speaker of English ever came up with anything better than the following about the difference between steam and sail:
White steam, red fire, black coal…thistle stalks, cobwebs and gossamer…reading things like that make me despair of ever writing anything more substantial than emails.
oldsalt,
I understood your point about education – just wanted to be sure everyone else reading here did, as well.
I love the way these selections describe the intimacy of the relationship between sailors and the ocean, and laborers with their machines. Many “modern” people see the world around them as little more than scenery for the drama of their lives or as stage props to be shoved around and manipulated. Ships live, and nature lives, and the machines that harness the forces of nature live.
Some time ago there was a little discussion here about the old saying, “It’s a poor workman who blames his tools.” I suppose the corollary would be, “A good worker knows his or her tools”, and knows them intimately. That knowledge can be critical. Early in my brightwork career I began formulating a few rules to live by, and one of my favorites is: “Never climb a mast on another man’s rope”.
Linda
When was it that we suddenly had to become “specialized” human beings? Clearly it helps to cater to the skills and interests of those within the community. The idea of bartering those skills instead of paying with money made so much sense a few years ago when that idea came forth. But it didn’t seem to go anywhere. For instance, I used to cut my ex-husband’s and son’s hair all those years ago. Why not, if it looks good and not “home-grown.”
I love doing things with my hands as well as with my mind. It sounds like you, Linda, are a perfect, GOOD example of both. But I’m guessing we all know someone who is so in their head all the time and of no earthly good.
Lots to think about here, isn’t there?!
And BTW, thank you kindly for putting my image to such good use. I’m honored.
Ginnie,
I’ve not given this much thought, but I suspect bartering depends on smaller communities and face-to-face relationships to be successful, and those are the very things that are slowly eroding around us. I have exchanged varnishwork for goods or services a few times – sometimes very creatively.
I’ve heard from some friends with large gardens that they’ve been able to exchange their produce for such things as lawn mowing this year. It may be that as the economy continues to stagnate, more of that will be happening.
As for people who live in their head all the time – that would be me, about 30 years ago. I knew a lot of big words, and couldn’t communicate to anyone. Moving to Africa started the transformation, sailing put it into high gear, and now here we are: varnishing wood and trying to write the unvarnished truth! What a kick.
Linda
Too often education is offered as a panacea. But as my grandmother often pointed out, the world is filled with educated fools. Recent events on Wall Street, in the banks and on many corporate boards attest to that fact.
One of the happiest and most well adjusted persons I ever knew was a man who was a grounds keeper at one of the General Motors plants here in Michigan. He was (and is) a superb musician and very well read. He came from a large Italian family and his brothers all had advanced degrees. Yet Denny knew that the politics of the office or the academy were not for him. He had his music, his friends, and a job that he enjoyed. He knew himself and I’d say that showed plenty of wisdom. Denny was also fortunate to have a family that accepted his choice.
Keep on varnishing–and writing!
Mike,
I thought a lot about your recent posts when I wrote this. I’m no fan of judgementalism, but making judgements – about people, behavior, society at large – isn’t a bad thing. Relativism, the assertion that nothing can be judged to be “better” than anything else, was one of my biggest arguments with some of my academic friends. There’s good varnish and bad varnish, just as there’s good writing and bad writing. One of the biggest changes I made in my life was to stop arguing about what constitutes the good, and start trying to produce it.
Self-knowledge and self-acceptance are the keys, aren’t they? And they’re easy to spot, as with Denny. One of the delightful ironies of life is that refusal of the academy or corporate life sometimes frees up time and opportunity to develop talents like music that otherwise would remain on the “back burner”. Remember Tennessee Ernie Ford’s great song, “Sixteen Tons”? We’ve got plenty of folks owing their souls to the company store these days, and the reality’s no happier than it was for the coal miners.
Now, with Labor Day over, I can start getting caught up with the fun parts of my life. See you at Dissent Decree!
Linda
It is fascinating how important it might be to not be ashamed for your parents/children. Or rather what causes there are to be ashamed.
You want to say something that impresses and stands out in a positive way.
That fancy job that should have made your mother less embarrassed wouldn’t have made you happier if you didn’t want it. But that is much harder to measure. Salary, length of education and such are easy to grasp and just as easily become a false indication of happiness.
Because when it comes down to it, your mother wants you to be happy, but nobody can measure your happiness but yourself.
Désirée,
That’s it, exactly. Mom always has wanted me to be happy – no question about that. But her idea of happiness and mine are very different.
We talk about it sometimes, just as my friends talk with their mothers. My favorite statement on the subject came from one of my friends, whose mother said to her, “You aren’t smart enough to know you aren’t happy.” Now, that’s funny ~ but we humans are funny creatures
What you say about salary, length of education and so on point to something else important. We can be quite successful in the world’s eyes without being happy. On the other hand, it’s possible to be happy even when others don’t consider us “successful”.
It’s so complicated, and so simple. Have you thought of writing a filmscript about such things?
Linda
“Never climb a mast on another man’s rope”.
A corollary might be, “a borrowed saw cuts anything.”
oldsalt,
And then there’s Annie Dillard’s advice for writers (and for klutzes trying to learn to chop wood): “Aim for the chopping block.”
Linda
I had forgotten until this post reminded me just what you do for a living. I think it is admirable that you looked at your life and made a choice about what you wanted to do that didn’t involve sacrificing your own contentment because of some idea that because you got an education you have to do this or that specific job for the rest of your life.
Office politics is probably the worst thing about the corporate world, or any similar career path. I am not one to play the political game, at least no more than I am forced to, and it is certainly the bane of my existence. I continually struggle to bring that common sense, hard work ethic that you describe (something that came from a father who did a hard labor job all for 44 years before retiring) to the corporate structure within which I work. It may be a fruitless exercise, but I continue to try. I really believe with that outlook and work ethic that the experience of working in an office setting can feel just as good at the end of the day as going out and doing some ‘honest labor’. At least that is my goal.
I know that the job I’ve been most happy with my entire life was when I was working out in the melon fields as a teenager. There is something very satisfying about having a specific goal and working hard to accomplish it. That is what I try to bring to my own job and am trying to teach those who work under me.
I hope you had a glorious Labor Day weekend, Linda.
Carl,
Of course, “honest labor” can take place in an office, corporate or academic setting as surely as in the trades. Somewhere along the way, “manual labor” and “honest labor” became conflated, and opposed to more intellectual or professional work. There’s no need for that to happen. When I was involved with maternal and child health clinics overseas, there was enormous satisfaction and a real sense of achievement despite the frustrations of work in a third-world setting. Being a (small and relatively unimportant) part of a research team at the UT School of Surgery in Houston still was exciting and challenging. And as for blogging – the research I do for some of my entries is so pleasurable the hours fly away until it’s 2 a.m. and the cat is fussing at me to turn out the lights and come to bed! All of that is “honest” work, too – and can be celebrated as such.
I do admire your approach to your work environment, just as I admire many others who remain in bureaucracies or corporate structures for their own reasons. But one of the great surprises to me has been discovering, one by one, others who have made the move to manual labor and are living hidden lives, their talents and interests completely hidden to those around them. Some of them eventually emerge from obscurity, like Faulkner, who wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks (or three months, or four, depending on who you believe) while working at a power plant. I haven’t met a Faulkner yet, but I’ve met an English teacher doing yard work by day and poetry by night, and a medical researcher now building houses. They love the mental/physical dynamic of their lives, and I understand that completely.
Linda
I’ve always subscribed to the view that college education is for the pursuit of the ideals, and have never regarded it as job training. So, your answer to your mother’s question is most apt. You have found what you think is of value.
It’s the other one, the university of life, that teaches work skills, offers practicum opportunities, and on-the-job training. It is through such experiences that one confirms one’s ideals. The two schools have no conflicts but complement each other. I have high admiration for those who can work well with their hands, who create and refine, and yes, who build and varnish. A great post in honor of Labor Day. I regret I’m a few days late. (Regarding our choice of topics though, and the timing, again I’m baffled by the coincidence.)
Arti,
I never think in terms of ideals, but I suspect what you mean by speaking of college in that way is what I’ve known as the traditional liberal arts college, or a curriuculum at a university designed to fulfill the same function: to provide an understanding of the sweep of history, an appreciation for literature, a language or two, an understanding of the arts.
When I began college in 1964, a liberal-arts degree was the choice of many of my friends. They went to schools like Monmouth, Carleton, Macalester, Oberlin and, just 20 miles east of my hometown, Grinnell. I often visited Grinnell and loved the atmosphere – the hushed library, the trees with students intent on their books leaning against them, the filled classrooms.
But moving into a profession required a different education – one that included practicums, and clinics, and supervised work. On the bachelor’s level I began by thinking of teaching (English, as a matter of fact!) and ended in medical social work, and none of those liberal arts schools provided the curriculum that would have allowed me to work after graduation. I needed to be certified as well as educated, and that dictated my choice of schools.
The lovely irony is that after rejecting work that required certifications and board approvals of various sorts, I found myself free to begin pursuing the ideals of which you speak, even though I’m varnishing the trees instead of leaning up against them! But time for thought and reflection, time to nurture my love of art, time to learn new things and time to turn all of those experiences in the “working world” into something others can enjoy – I have it now.
I think if we face any challenge today in education, it’s to recover the sense that learning “for its own sake” is a good thing, and that a degree should be far more than a professional union card.
Linda
FIrst of all, I have to say that on most blogs I visit, I don’t really pour over the comments. I give them a glance, but in general, they don’t continue the conversation. Reading others’ comments and your replies to them really gives an additional “burnish” to this blog. You have managed to achieve dialogue online. Wonderful.
I wonder what your immigrant family would think of your world — not just your varnishing life; I suspect that would resonate. But also your rich education, your command of language, your mastery of technology, and how you can communicate with so many with such depth and beauty? You have told their story in the best way possible — and the story of so many others. I remain inspired by your work, and love this post. It’s beautiful.
jeanie,
One of the little ironies is that for a time my mother’s father made a living varnishing woodwork in homes. I didn’t know a thing about it until I’d been varnishing for about five years. I learned about it in one of “those” discussion with Mom – I believe the clue was something like, “Well, at least your grandfather might understand”. Even more interesting is the fact that she worked with him occasionally. She didn’t like to varnish, but did the sanding. She says she liked the work, but doesn’t want me doing it.
Some of the negativity she feels no doubt is due to the fact that they were doing the work during the depression years, and those are strong associations for a lot of folks.
I do treasure the comments people leave, and take every one of them seriously. Even the little ones, like “Nice post” are important – they’re like someone walking past the house and giving a little wave or speaking a greeting. The only thing I’ve noticed about my approach to comments is that, as conversations develop and more folks comment, it takes more time. But that’s not a problem – just a fact of life, to be dealt with.
You have given me my first really good laugh for a while. “Mastery of technology”? Oh, girl! Not so. I clunk along, learning what I have to know to do the basics, and no more. Want to know my dirty little secret? I’ve never even sent a text message.
Thanks so much for stopping by, and for your truly kind words. This weekend’s the anniversary of Ike, I have my post up, and I have the luxury now of visiting everyone I’ve missed seeing while I was working on it.
Linda
“For this you got all that education.”
Yep – for this post and all the others, thank heaven you got all that education. Your story within your family’s story illumines the human experience beautifully – one word at a time. And isn’t it wonderful that the repetitive action of varnishing allows you to create such beauty – there amongst boats and here amongst blogs. Your work, my friend, stands out with class.
Janell,
That phrase you used – “one word at a time” – reminded me immediately of one of my favorites, Annie Dillard’s “The Writing Life”. She has a wonderful paragraph which asserts that,
I suppose we could make the leap and suggest the same dynamic for life, growing day to day, living from the first day to the last, “displaying the courage and fear this method induces”. Or, we could just get a cup of coffee and go out to check the garden
When I started my blogs, I knew from the beginning I wanted them to be places for grown-ups. That’s just another way of saying I wanted them to have a little class. If I’ve succeeded even a bit, I’m happy. Thanks for saying so.
Linda
. . . 500 business cards and shopping for sandpaper . . .
What a way to make a life change! Great comments on this piece too. People have fascinating lives and your yarns make them want to share them.
Jeannine,
One of the things that made the “change of life” so interesting is that there wasn’t a guidebook, an instruction manual. I’ve thought about it a lot, and as far as I know, it was the first time in my life I engaged in some extended, truly independent problem-solving.
The most important lesson I learned was that unworkable solutions aren’t the end of the world, and that being invested in the outcome is more important than being invested in a particular process to get there.
It worked so well my blog has a business card, now
Linda
Amusing and entertaining post, well written and leaves one wanting more. Almost like reading one chapter of a book and finding the rest of the pages blank. Look forward to more on this theme.
Mapamundo,
Many thanks for your kind words – I’m so glad you enjoyed the read. As I live a working class life, there’s little doubt more will show up eventually, though predicting what will catch my attention is difficult at best!
I do so enjoy comments from new readers. You’re welcome any time.
Linda