What I want to address, nay, celebrate today is good old work, manual labor. I live on a side street, just a couple doors down from a fairly busy street. The fairly busy street, for years, has been one of the roughest rides I have ever driven (memories of Saturday Night Live's iconic commercial about a rabbi performing a circumcision in the backseat of a Lincoln or Mercury while being driven on a pothole-heavy road; alas, despite the appropriateness of that commercial and this particular road, I can't find the clip on YouTube). So imagine my delight a week or so ago when heavy duty construction equipment started appearing along the roadside. Finally, a paving job. But then big yellow pipes started appearing too, and the guys have started work installing new pipes on the side of the road. One would think that the powers that be would be in synch and that after laying pipe the boys would start a smooth re-surfacing job, right? I don't know, though; it all sounds too obvious for the bureaucrats. I'll believe it only when I can drive the road without fear of losing a filling.
Anyway, on this Saturday morning, a glorious no-work day for me, I was awakened at 7 by the road crew dragging pipes around. I was eventually awakened momentarily again a few times before finally (three adverbs in half a sentence; working English teachers connipt) succumbing to full consciousness after nine when a backing up piece of machinery's incessant beep beep beep fooled me into believing it was my alarm. I looked out the window and the sight of several beefy guys in hardhats and yellow smocks standing around a hole while various orange hulking machines and a loud generator idled nearby instantly, like I was a Midwest American counterpart to little Marcel and his bisquit, transported me back forty years to the glorious summer days of my youth watching men at work.
Oh those mornings back then when waking to the noise of a road crew was like waking up to find Santa Claus dropping by for a picnic in June. All the little boys of the neighborhood would congregate on a tree lawn near the action, and with nothing more than a PB&J and lemonade break and a potty trip or two to interrupt the day, we'd be in heaven until quitting time. It was a pageant. You could spend thirty minutes just watching one guy wrestle with a piece of pipe, or three hours admiring the mechanical wonder of a long, flexible steam shovel. Over time you'd get to know the personalities of the crew: the young guy who seemed so cool smoking a cigarette as he guided a backing up pick-up truck. The dirty guy loser who seemed always to be the one who had to jump down in the hole to do something nasty. The lazy guy who slept for hours at the controls of a not-needed-yet piece of machinery parked a ways down the street. The fat guy, who seemed to be the boss, who mostly directed what little traffic there was and once every two hours or so would be called over to make some kind of decision about dirt. If you were lucky there'd be a guy who would shout a bad word or two above the non-stop moan of a generator. My God it was paradise: Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel come to life in living color right in your own front yard. Our moms must have rejoiced when the work crews showed up for a day or two or even a week or two. We were out of their hair and merely a glance out of the window away for hours, days, weeks--hypnotized by men at work. Taking some time today to watch these descendants of the gods of my youth, I missed most of the wonder, but I did give a long overdue nod of gratitude: I promise to thank these guys over the ensuing weeks/months/years for their now-seemingly tedious, exhausting work when I turn the knobs and get a stream of clean, fresh water or flush away what I flush away. Thank you gentlemen, for the wonder of sheer entertainment then and the wonder of indoor plumbing now.
I think you meant "backhoe."
ReplyDeleteI doubt that you are old enough to remember a "steam shovel."
However, because of your use of the archaic expression, I suspect that we both read the same children's book about a steam shovel. (But I cannot remember the title, darn it!)
Mike Mulligan and the/His Steam Shovel. If I knew what a backhoe was, then I would have meant it. Whatever the machine is with a long, kind of dinosaur arm with a shovel on it. I'm old enough to forget half of what I used to know. Thanks for fact checking for me; it could be a full-time job.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dan-
ReplyDeleteI had not thought of that book in many decades. (Nor did I recognize "Mike Mulligan" in the paragraph after you initially mentioned the steam shovel.)
The ending to that book is bittersweet - the steam shovel breaks down and is "re-purposed" as a furnace, trapped in a basement!
(I hope I didn't ruin the ending for anyone! )