One of the eloquentia at AOSHQ:
... [...] brawn and brains that drove America to such great heights, and the honor of sometimes backbreaking work in the steel mills and coal mines and railroads and factories of America is something that we should never diminish.
Yet now we mock it!
Digging ditches as a teenager? Never! Bagging groceries, sweeping the shop floor, lugging parts from one bench to another, fetching tools, lubricating great machines? That's beneath us!
But that is the crucible from which the master machinist emerged. That is the classroom where the heavy equipment operator, who looks like he was born in the cab of his crane, learned his craft. That is where the welder who built the great war machines that saved the world learned how to do his magic. That is where the machine-tool operator who eyeballs a ten-thousandth cut learned his wizardry.
But we have spent generations denigrating that labor, and we are left with a nation that sees "labor" as a dirty word. Never mind that those laborers are responsible for the unimaginable wealth of America, and that without them we would rapidly fall back into a muddle of third world poverty and a decaying country that simply cannot be repaired.
Our youth dreams of web design and fancy offices and massage stations at work and never ever getting their hands dirty.
So what?
Here's what:
Change a tire? Call someone!
But one day that call will go unanswered...
No comments:
Post a Comment