I got Democratic Hands, I Got Democratic Arms...

[catnhatnh]

At 55 years of age they tell stories of a working past. Like the cut marks on the fingers of my left hand. Those are about when my Dad taught me to splice ropes for an oyster boat when I was 14...The left hand held the rope and the knife was in my right.I worked summers as a deck hand for three years.

On the right hand,the third finger is twisted. That happened when a big electric motor went bad and fried a contactor and blew a 400 amp, 240 volt three phase fuse. I bent it 90 degrees trying to switch off a breaker box. I remember that day well-I stayed at work four hours to locate a replacement fuse...Then they bent it close and splinted it.

Both arms are particolored. I've been burned and cut and abraded. The left arm is always darker...the years driving assured that. There's a prominent scar across the lower third of my right arm...that was burned in below a computer sub-floor by a pipe for the cooling system while I bundled wires.

Off on the left is a burn scar from the scrap metal years...a small truck was up on a payloader while I used a torch to cut away the catylitic converter...it was so hard to get it right that when my clothing caught on fire I stayed there just a bit too long.

Both arms carry all those marks where the pigment is now gone-a hundred scars or more.

What they are and mean are this...

For 40 years my hands and arms performed honest labor. My hands and arms are the chronicals of jobs past. And in my lifetime my hands have never touched ten thousand dollars....

And perhaps we would be better off if people who handled billions of dollars had hands, and arms, and experiences, just like mie.

[Hugin]

1. "in my lifetime my hands have never touched ten thousand dollars...."

Same here.

To me, $20.00 is a lot of money.

[democrank]

2. Glad to recommend this.

Several years ago I listened to a segment on teevee about an author who had written a book on working with one`s hands. I`ve never forgotten it and thought about it again recently when I was helping my little grandson with one of his projects.

I love working with my hands....making bread, fixing a chair, splitting wood, even scrapping metal. What a sense of accomplishment! You`re right, "honest" labor, something that guy under house arrest in his $7,000,000 New York apartment may have benefited from.