Hi Joe,
I have just discovered your web site and I am sure glad that I did! You have given voice to things that I have always known in my heart to be true, but could rarely articulate.
I recently moved to Johnson City, Tennessee, after spending the previous 46 years of my existence in the New York City metro area. I am a birthright liberal of Puerto Rican descent. My dad supported all five of us and my mom on a draftsman's salary. He was a smart man, and almost finished college. Thank goodness that he was a World War Two veteran, which allowed him to buy the modest suburban home I grew up in. Many of my cousins who were left behind in the city didn't fare nearly as well. The city will swallow you up as sure as any decrepit coal mining town. Looking back, we were very poor, but I never knew it.
Anyway, by sheer dint of sacrifice and love of two depression era parents, my siblings and I were all able to attend college. In fact, from an early age, it was inconceivable that we wouldn't. My school had excellent teachers (Kennedy Challenge era) who were socially conscious, and dared to teach critical thinking that they would slip in between the prepared lessons. I now make a comfortable living as an engineer, and I am grateful that my parents valued education enough to keep on my lazy ass until I graduated.
I often teach mini-seminars, mostly to tradesmen. I also love talking to college kids when I am invited to a trade fair. There, I never miss an opportunity to warn new engineering graduates not to give in to the temptation of being a prima donna know-it-all when dealing with tradesmen, rough-necks and mechanics. They will be doing your work, and you will need them on your side. Just because Bubba the electrician doesn't have a degree, doesn't mean he can't teach you plenty. Make friends with Bubba, take a genuine interest in his work, treat him as an equal, and you will have a friend for life. Naturally, it goes without saying that if you turn your nose down at him, he will fuck you at every opportunity and make it his business to make sure that you'll never get anything done.
So, I moved down to Eastern Tennessee, and have already met some amazing people. The hillbilly brush-hogger, for instance, that does odd jobs on the side, and who helped me unload my truck when I arrived. Bobby worked hard. Very hard, and for not much money. I paid the temp agency $12.50 an hour for his back, and I hate to think of how much of that he got at the end of the day. Don't worry, I fed him and took good care of him, too. It's a crime that guys like him would get paid shit if not for the tips. He gets a phone call from me whenever I need a hand, and I'm happy to hang out and kibbitz with him. Life hasn't been that kind to him, but he is pure country, fun to hang with, and a good soul. He also knows what time it is. He has a boy that came back from Iraq -- mentally scarred from having a couple of his buddies blown up right in front of him. All I could picture was Bobby and me yakking over a beer as I read your blogs.
There is so much more I can tell -- and I don't even know why I am boring you with my life -- you don't know who I am, and perhaps could not care less, but it is important for me to tell you that I admire your world view, and I hope that you will continue your work and share it with the rest of us.
In the meantime, there's lots more amazing people here in Eastern Tennessee that I have to get to know.
Do be well,
Daniel
Johnson City, Tennessee
------
Daniel,
You certainly are not boring me with your life. It is rare when a more urbane professional person finds himself living in the rural or smalltown working class heartland, and does not to choose to live above those around him. I see it every day in Winchester -- people move here because it is cheaper than Washington, DC, they can have acreage and cheap labor to help them with it. Almost immediately they start doing a cheap imitation of the "landed gentry" who've been here for 250 years. Most of them seem to be engineering or business management types, or government bureaucrats, but even the so-called liberal Democrats among them treat local working class people like shit, and laugh at them behind their backs.
No matter. They are now beginning to get what they deserve -- being trapped out there in grid locked traffic with three or four hours of daily commute to and from DC, fighting $4,000 a month mortgages, $4 gas for the SUVs they can barely even trade in, much less sell, shackled to bitch-and-shop wives and watching their bloodless lard-assed little spawn waddle around their now unheatable, uncoolable cathedral ceilinged, "great room" fuck boxes with headsets on while they wait for the food court at the mall to open. And I cannot say that I am not enjoying the sight of all this. I'm a spiteful fucker at heart.
Yes, dear friend, there is at least some small justice in this world.
Meanwhile, guys like you get to enjoy the company of real flesh and blood human beings.
In art and labor,
Joe
