[Publib] More Work

[backwage at aol.com]

I forgot to mention that my father went to college after having been an aviation structural mechanic in the aerospace industry.? He never spoke a word about his former life.? One day when I was quite young, I opened a toolbox in the garage and found all sorts of gizmos, strange devices that I know now were for forming the bodies and skins of aircraft.? I asked Dad what they were and he said, "Tools."? That was the entirety of the explanation.? The man across the street had to tell me that my father had been an aviation mechanic and before that a sheetmetal worker in a shipyard.? 

My father was ashamed of manual work--for a living, anyhow.? He taught English and wouldn't change his own oil because that was for "grease monkeys."? Thus he rose in his own estimation.? For his generation it was a huge thing to go to college; manual labor was something to leave behind.? Even so, he taught himself carpentry, bricklaying and the rudiments of other trades, mostly because he was too cheap and we were too poor (from his teacher's pay) to have things done for us.? I can attest to the fact that prestige, such as you?might enjoy from being the only teacher in a working class neighborhood,?adds no calories to the family diet.? 

You don't know how it grates on me to have the guys where I work, all of them former?journeymen pipefitters and plumbers, say "You know best on this.? I'm just a mechanic."? I tell them that if they had to start the world all over again they wouldn't begin with researchers.? 

On the other hand, the best apprentices we get come from college backgrounds.? The reason for this is that they have discovered that the degree is not a magic carpet to employment, and because they have learned how to study.? 

Everybody belongs in the job they would do if they won the lottery.? I'd be a gardener.? How about you?

M. McGrorty
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