BackwaterBlog

No, no real decision yet.  Trying to decide whether or not to revert back nearly 30 years and do the sort of thing that got me started down this silly old construction road in the first place?  It’s hard, I can tell you.

For one thing, I’m not 21 years old anymore.  Tossing sheets of plywood around all day isn’t the effortless thing it used to be, if it ever was.  Working indoors in summer heat makes arabian headgear a necessity.  In winter it’s thermals and layers.  The place has a reputation of being one of the best in the Southeast, and it’s well deserved, but that doesn’t mean paradise for the talent that shovels the wood all day long.

http://sippicancottage.blogspot.com/2009/01/killing-two-um-in-bush-with-umthe-birds.html Sippican has a story that illustrates a conundrum.  I remember well breaking into the industry in 1980, when the economy was even worse than it is now (hard to believe, isn’t it?).  Nobody buying houses because of prohibitive interest rates, super high unemployment in construction.  It was bad.  Yet I strolled into a lumberyard two days after getting married and landed a minimum wage job in a cabinet shop.  With the recommendation from a good friend who worked there.

Ally and I didn’t have two nickels to rub together.  I don’t remember either of us bringing home $100 a week for a very long time.  Rent was $250 a month, I had a $165 truck payment and the usual utilities, groceries.  We did nothing.  I mean nothing for entertainment or dinners out or weekend vacations. There was no cable tv, no internet, no VCR’s.  Man it was weak, and you just sweated and pushed and kept going because there was no other choice.

Looks very much like we’ve come full circle, doesn’t it.  There is no whining allowed because I accept it.  I don’t particularly like it, my freedom’s down the tubes and I value that as much as anything, but there it is.  Work to eat.  Hope for better days.

Guess I’ve got a call to make.