Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 10:13:56 -0500 (EST)
Random Thought: Real World
It's two days before Thanksgiving. I was standing in long, long
line at a local supermarket this morning with a cart full of "last minute"
stuff for which my Susan had sent me to the supermarket. The line was one
of many. The line of checkout counters looked like a toll booth on a
major artery at rush hour. It was a culinery traffic jam that heralded
many a food overdose, that was going to throw a lot of us into a stuffing
shock syndrome, lapses into a turkey coma, and requiring most of us to
spend weeks of rehabilitation and recovery from a caloric haze.
In front of me was a casually dressed man. In the spirit of the
season, which I wish would last for more than a few weeks, and seeing that
the pace at which we were moving threatened that we may miss Thanksgiving
diner before we checked out, I struck up a conversation. I introduced
myself. He introduced himself. He was a carpenter at local construction
company
"My daughter is going to the university," he said proudly. "First
in the family!"
I told him that he must be proud for his daughter.
"Yep," he answered. He extended his hands and turned them palms
up. "I'm a carpenter. Work with my hands. I never did get passed high
school. My wife neither."
I told him that I was an avid do-it-yourselfer, bragging about,
among other things, having added a master bedroon complex to the house and
having built a koi fish pond totally by myself. He dipped his head and
looked at me over his glasses. There was an unimpressed "so" in his
polite glance as if I were an intruding amateur. I told him that I can
appreciate the skill and talent it takes to be a good carpenter.
"It takes more than cutting a piece of wood or banging a nail.
Not everyone can do it. You work with more than your hands. You have to
work with both your head and your hands," I assured him.
He lifted his head. "Sure 'nuf. Lots of problems thats gotta be
looked at and done with right," he replied with a very slight proud
smile. "But," he continued as his face turned serious, a small emphatic
wrinkle appeared in his slightly contracted brow, and his voice got the
tone of a reprimanding snicker, "I warned my Martha that she oughtn't get
high and mighty with all that book learnin' and better keep her feet on
the ground and not let you fellas drum out the common sense the wife and I
gave her. I'll knock her down a peg or two if I see that happenin', yes
sir. She's got to get a real job out here in the real world. We sure 'nuf
don't want her to get to bein' airy like you people over there."
Ouch!!
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