I have not had a paid job since before Christmas. Oh, I had a piece in an art gallery that sold but that is not the same as a "job". A job requires a schedule, a time frame, responsibility and a specific performance. It requires some organization and forethought and, frankly, I love this. I dream about it and if I have the time, these are recurring dreams. I build the project over and over again while I sleep.
I am a list maker and write everything down: gas in the truck and the address written down, two ladders, two battery screw guns with extra batteries, a grinder and little cut-off saw, pliers to tie the wire. The wire to fasten the barbed wire, the barbed wire, the brackets and a special locking devise I made for the back door. The screws! A tape measure, and an extra, just in case. These are all packed, ready to go and I am as excited as a kid on Christmas morning!
It is a tiny job, I admit it. Maybe three hours of field time and eight hours of shop time and a couple more just running around time. My local little grocery store, the neighborhood kind is owned by an Indian. No, not Cherokee! A guy from India. He is like we used to be, has all the hard work ethic we have long let go of, works a 12 hour day, every day. Now he bought another little store in a neighboring little town, a store that had been for all intents and purposes, abandoned, run down and in need. He will totally remodel it (I don't do that any more!) and inject life into it with new lighting, new and bigger freezers and coolers, better products and fairer pricing. That is what he did to my little store a few years ago and he is now doing it again.
The "American Dream" requires hard work and we have forgotten about this. I know another guy from India who owns the local McDonald's. His whole family works there. I have seen him mop the floors, cook the hamburgers and serve the food, always with a smile. They work long shifts too.
From nothing, in twenty years he will own it.
I have a friend from Mexico who works at the local powder coating factory. He also works odd jobs in the evening and every weekend. He has a family and is buying a house. He is legal now but came here 20 years ago as a kid of 17, crawling across the desert to pick fruit and whatever he could find.
He is an American now, a citizen, and I am proud to call him a friend.
Where did we go wrong? It is now these foreigners who come here and show us what we used to be. In my little town there are people on almost every street corner begging for money, almost always, white people. Never have I seen a Mexican or Latino, and certainly not an Indian, American or other.
We want it now and we want it free.
Anyway, I am happy to be working, even if just for a few hours. I like what it does to my brain, to my attitude, gets me out and away from my shop, which sometimes is a good thing, away from reading which I have been doing far too much of and gets me to anticipate. Something someone Wants of me:
I like that!
I am a list maker and write everything down: gas in the truck and the address written down, two ladders, two battery screw guns with extra batteries, a grinder and little cut-off saw, pliers to tie the wire. The wire to fasten the barbed wire, the barbed wire, the brackets and a special locking devise I made for the back door. The screws! A tape measure, and an extra, just in case. These are all packed, ready to go and I am as excited as a kid on Christmas morning!
It is a tiny job, I admit it. Maybe three hours of field time and eight hours of shop time and a couple more just running around time. My local little grocery store, the neighborhood kind is owned by an Indian. No, not Cherokee! A guy from India. He is like we used to be, has all the hard work ethic we have long let go of, works a 12 hour day, every day. Now he bought another little store in a neighboring little town, a store that had been for all intents and purposes, abandoned, run down and in need. He will totally remodel it (I don't do that any more!) and inject life into it with new lighting, new and bigger freezers and coolers, better products and fairer pricing. That is what he did to my little store a few years ago and he is now doing it again.
The "American Dream" requires hard work and we have forgotten about this. I know another guy from India who owns the local McDonald's. His whole family works there. I have seen him mop the floors, cook the hamburgers and serve the food, always with a smile. They work long shifts too.
From nothing, in twenty years he will own it.
I have a friend from Mexico who works at the local powder coating factory. He also works odd jobs in the evening and every weekend. He has a family and is buying a house. He is legal now but came here 20 years ago as a kid of 17, crawling across the desert to pick fruit and whatever he could find.
He is an American now, a citizen, and I am proud to call him a friend.
Where did we go wrong? It is now these foreigners who come here and show us what we used to be. In my little town there are people on almost every street corner begging for money, almost always, white people. Never have I seen a Mexican or Latino, and certainly not an Indian, American or other.
We want it now and we want it free.
Anyway, I am happy to be working, even if just for a few hours. I like what it does to my brain, to my attitude, gets me out and away from my shop, which sometimes is a good thing, away from reading which I have been doing far too much of and gets me to anticipate. Something someone Wants of me:
I like that!
