[Publib] Monday thoughts on Sunday

Mon Jul 6 11:08:22 EDT 2009

Before the mad rush to a pastoral lifestyle begins...

My other full-time job is agricultural-- my husband and I farm 180 acres in
the rich river bottom ground east of Lawrence, Kansas. We do the row crop
thing with corn and soybeans, but in the late 1980's we got tired of working
really hard to bring in a crop and then be told by the elevator owners what
we would be paid (sometimes just barely more than our investment, not
counting our work). We had a small pick your own fruit operation, and
decided to try to expand that so we could be masters of our own fate. One
thing led to another, and we wound up opening a farm winery in 1997. We
still do row crops, but hire the machine work done because our time is
needed in the vineyard. It's a small operation, and far from being calm and
pastoral: we work in all weather conditions, all year long. We battle bugs
and varmints and fungus diseases. We battle neighbors who use 2,4-D to spray
their weeds when it's too hot and windy (i.e., illegally) and the vapor
drift damages the leaves on our vines. We battle the weather. We battle
nearby water districts that have tried to use eminent domain to take our
land so they can drain the water underneath and pump it miles to the south
of us, leaving all the farmers in our area without adequate irrigation. We
get hot and cold and absolutely filthy/sweaty/icky. We can't leave the farm
unattended for most of the year. Still, neither of us would trade this for
anything. There might be people who would not dream of working this hard
under these conditions, but there are people who would absolutely love the
opportunity.

One other thing-- guess how we learned about grape growing and winemaking in
the middle of Kansas? Books! Lots and lots of books! Manual labor and
learning are not mutually exclusive. And yes, I still love working at the
library.

Living the full-tilt life,

Charlee

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:29 AM, Sharon Foster <fostersm1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe I misunderstood the question. If those are the only three
> choices, I would probably be a carpenter. Problem is, it's a hard way
> to make a living right now, even in Fairfield County, CT. New home
> construction is cyclical in the best of times and, while there is
> repair work, I'm not sure it generates enough income to live on. For a
> recession-proof, work-with-my-hands job, I'd be a farmer. With a few
> chickens and goats, and enough land, I'd be self-sustaining.
>
> Sharon M. Foster, JD, MLS
> Librarians bring order out of chaos.
> http://www.vsa-software.com/mlsportfolio/
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Robert Balliot<rballiot at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There is no reason librarians cannot be plumbers, electricians, and
> > carpenters too.  The wealth of public
> > libraries provides the resources to learn many skill sets.  As proponents
> of
> > lifetime learning we should
> > embrace our inner builders and repairers.  One of my friends is a very
> > skilled writer and also worked
> > as a plumber.  Developing physical skills along with mental skills
> certainly
> > enhances brain function.
> >
> > In fact, I think most library directors, after managing buildings for any
> > length of time or going through a
> > building project will develop at least a cursory knowledge of
> architectural,
> > structural, plumbing, mechanical
> > and electrical plans.  Perhaps the most valuable skill sets will be
> heating
> > and air conditioning along
> > with furniture restoration and repair.  All librarians become interior
> > designers - developing ergonomic
> > processes to either complement or make up for the original configurations
> of
> > their architects.
> >
> >
> > R. Balliot
> > http://oceanstatelibrarian.com
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Martha Grenzeback
> > <graymatters at windstream.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> I don't think well-lit matters so much as air-conditioned (at least here
> >> in the Nebraska summers)...I do wash my own windows (they don't get done
> >> often, though) and do my own gardening, but I think a lot of
> brainwashing
> >> goes on at school. I have three daughters and would love to have a
> plumber,
> >> electrician, and carpenter in the family, since those are sorely needed
> >> around here, but to no avail (except for one promising boyfriend). I
> studied
> >> library science because I love it. At least I can direct people to
> plumbing
> >> guides and such.....
> >>
> >> Martha Grenzeback
> >> graymatters at windstream.net
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> At 03:54 PM 7/5/2009, Backwage at aol.com wrote:
> >>
> >> Recently the New York Times has offered an article about the worth of a
> >> modern-day master's degree.  The link follows--if as happens it doesn't
> >> function you can always look the piece up yourselves.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/?scp=1&sq=masters%20degree&st=cse
> >>
> >> The Times has received quite a few comments on topic.  Reading through
> >> them we find the usual themes, many of which have been worked to death
> by
> >> newly-minted librarians over the years:  lack of jobs, student loan
> burdens,
> >> terrific competition and of course, the lack of recognition by society
> in
> >> general.
> >>
> >> Most of these gripes ring about as true as the signs of the beggars on
> >> freeway on-ramps.   They more or less say "Will Work For Food" but the
> >> reality is somewhat at variance with this claim.  I recall years ago
> when
> >> there was a teacher's strike in Los Angeles, the longshore locals
> invited
> >> the strikers to work the docks on a temporary basis.  Very few did, and
> >> those who did evaporated pretty quickly.
> >>
> >> Here in the building trades we often get inquiries by laid-off teachers
> >> and other educated folk about apprenticeships.  They sometimes fill out
> >> applications, and they always pass the tests, but they almost never
> stick
> >> around, even though the starting apprentice pay meets or exceeds
> beginning
> >> teacher salaries, and the top pay (after only five years!) beats the
> heck
> >> out of what almost any teacher gets.  The hourly wage for an electrician
> is
> >> $35.95 and the plumber wage is almost 34 dollars, not counting the
> benefit
> >> packages.  Things are a bit slow right now, but anybody can apply for
> the
> >> apprenticeship program.  In fact, the laborers union is always hiring,
> and
> >> you can go to work ASAP.
> >>
> >> The reason that these folks don't is because they don't want to.  Work,
> >> that is.  Today they will use the excuse of the recession, but a year or
> so
> >> ago when things were going fine they just griped about something else.
> Why
> >> is this so?  Well, we might look at a time when this wasn't so.
> >>
> >> The schoolteachers and librarians of my childhood mostly had other
> careers
> >> before getting their college degrees.  I had teachers who were
> previously
> >> plumbers, landscapers and carpenters.  They even went back to the trades
> in
> >> summer.  A librarian I knew had been a laborer; another was a tech
> writer in
> >> an aircraft plant.  Another packed fruit in a cannery.  These weren't
> >> summer-break jobs but what they did and would have done forever if they
> >> hadn't gotten an M.A. degree.  My own father taught school but was an
> >> aircraft mechanic before that.  By the time I did my own librarian
> >> internships I found that none of my superiors had done anything in the
> way
> >> of manual work at all.  Over the course of a couple of generations, the
> >> working class connections had withered away.
> >>
> >> Side note:  I worked as a clerk in a public library where none of the
> >> librarians had ever worked outside the cloister.  All of them had gone
> from
> >> college to college to the library.  In this same place the clerks were
> all
> >> working class people, most with only a bit of college done.  Talk about
> a
> >> culture chasm.  Sometimes I had to translate so the two sides could
> >> understand each other.  I could do this because the librarians figured I
> was
> >> going to be a librarian, and because the clerks were the parents of kids
> I'd
> >> grown up with.  I could write a book just from the conversations each
> side
> >> had about the other.
> >>
> >> Nowadays the educated classes look down on manual labor.  This is not to
> >> say that they don't give lip service to it, but the real measure of
> their
> >> feeling comes through in how they raise their own kids.  I've seen
> dozens of
> >> librarians and teachers who would tell you "Whatever my kid does is fine
> >> with me," but then they sit up late filling out applications to Yale so
> >> little Dingbat doesn't have to dirty his hands among the lower classes.
> >> Mind you, the trade union officials I work with are the same--they
> direct
> >> their own kids to college unless the kid is a very dim bulb, at which
> point
> >> they finance his entry into a "music school" where the kid can learn the
> >> rudiments of guitar playing until he finds himself (on the couch at
> home).
> >>
> >> [As I look down the street where I live, not a single householder mows
> his
> >> own lawn or washes his own windows.  The trucks come around from the
> diaper
> >> service, the laundry and even to deliver groceries.  They look at me
> like
> >> I'm crazy because I do my own gardening--they can't even name the
> flowers in
> >> their own yards.  I have yet to meet a young person in these parts who
> was
> >> not destined for college--the kids wear college sweatshirts from junior
> high
> >> school onward.  What will happen to those who don't get into college?
> Will
> >> they hate themselves or feel betrayed, like the folks with degrees who
> can't
> >> find the job they want?]
> >>
> >> And tell me, what is it about actual work that the educated classes
> >> dislike?  Is it the duties or the milieu, or perhaps the label?  My own
> Pop
> >> left the aircraft business to take a two-thirds cut in pay to be a
> >> schoolteacher.  For a smart man he was an idiot.  And very proud to be
> an
> >> intellectual.  Sometimes I wonder exactly what that means.
> >>
> >> Once we had masses of people demanding jobs; now we have masses of
> >> educated folk demanding jobs that won't dirty their hands--and also that
> >> these jobs be located in clean, well-lit offices among others of their
> >> kind.  Tell me the truth:  would you work at something other than
> >> librarianship for the same money or better?  And why don't you now?
> >>
> >> M. McGrorty
> >> ________________________________
> >> Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill.
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-- 
Ms. Charlee Glinka
Collection Development Coordinator
Lawrence Public Library
707 Vermont St.
Lawrence, KS 66044
785-843-3833 x104
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