I Wonder

The tree guys didn't finish yesterday.  They will be back next week.  I've had many workers here in the last few months.  I couldn't do it.  I whine all the time about work, but I don't know what work is. Labor, I mean.  There is a difference.  The fellows who put in the a.c. were here from dawn until after dark.  They worked all day except for a lunch break.  That wasn't just for me.  They do that every day.  When they get home, they shower and eat and then it is time for bed because they get up early and do it all again the next day.  On the weekends, I assume, there must be things they have to do around the house.  I'll bet they don't have lawn crews.

The electrician was here that long, too.  He had to come back the next day to finish up.

The tree guys were cutting and hauling things all day long.  They left here at six on a Friday evening. They still had to drive to wherever they leave the big trucks, get into their cars, and drive home.  Maybe they were eating by seven-thirty or eight.

I feel myself a hero if I put in a morning of yard work.  I built my deck and felt like I'd done something magnificent.  I didn't get up early the next morning and start building another.  I haven't any idea what it is like to labor for a living, day after day after day.

What would my political views be if I did that every day of my life?  What would I think of people with soft hands and who went to fancy cocktail bars?

Those are rhetorical questions.  I would simply have been a criminal.

I feel guilty that I whine.  I do.  I whine when I have to go to the mini-mart.  I whine if the olives aren't as good as the ones I had the time before.

Only here, though, to you, in writing.  In person, not so much.  I like cowboys.

Still, I wonder why they are the ones most adamantly "American."  I drive through the poor parts of town where trailers sit slanted on their cement blocks with tarps covering their roofs, where cars sit on jacks and old tires fill the yard, and I see American flags and flag decals everywhere.  You don't see Elizabeth Warren for President signs.  You don't see anything promoting "Medicare for All."

I haven't figured that out yet.  When I'll let you know.