On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 09:24:37 -0400, HK wrote:

Summer jobs. Speaking of things built, about 35 years ago, I was in NYC
with a DC client, attending a meeting. The guy was president of an
international union. We had some time to kill, and he insisted on taking
me to the Empire State Building. Big secret. We got to one of the middle
floors, went to a utility closet, he opened it, and there, chiseled into
a bit of construction stone, was his first initial and last name, and
the date. Yep, *he* worked on building the Empire State Building.

Any time your labor goes into something that people use, touch, or
live in you gain something immeasurable.
When I worked in the steel mills and at IH heat treating and forming
metal into shapes I felt something good every time I saw a girder or a
dozer working the earth. Of course if I had been building Cat dozers
instead of IH I would have felt even gooder (-:
As a packaging machine mechanic and operator the feeling was similar,
as I often saw my products for sale in stores.
Sure, they were consumable products, but they flowed through the
veins of those who consumed them, and became part of them.
And *I* played a part in producing them!
Then I spent 25 years in computer systems, writing programs,
supporting and managing application systems. No matter how good I
was, I never had that feeling of accomplishment as when I labored with
steel.
I made much more money, but produced nothing that lasted long.
There might be dozer track shoes, links, tunnels, bushings and other
parts still out there working , produced by me 40 years ago.
Even the packaging products formed cells in people still living.
But practically everything I later wrote and designed in 25 years of
computer software is gone. Erased from the planet. Some of it by me.
What may be left from my last years' work will surely be gone soon.
Fewer and fewer Americans understand the values production labor
imparts to a society. The Chinese do most of our production now.
But that's another topic.

Can you imagine the lifelong sense of accomplishment...seeing that
building, knowing you worked on it...wow!

I can imagine that. On a much lesser level I rebuilt the two story
porch on my old brick 2-flat by my lonesome. Holding up the heavy
roof with 50 foot ladders I replaced the rotted 6x6's, joists,
landings, railings, staircases, outlooks, etc. dug, formed and poured
new footings.
Did have my brother help with me once with hoisting the heavily tarred
steel gutter and a long 6x6.
Anyway, it was a pretty sight when I was done, and since I cured the
cause of what rotted it, it would have lasted longer than the 60 years
of the original. Tickled my heart every time I looked at it.
But an arsonist lit it up a couple years later, so I can't go see it.
I talked about this subject to a computer field mate some years ago
and he understood it well. His grand dad was a bricklayer, and he
knew every building where grand dad had laid the brick in his Ohio
hometown.
His grand dad had been dead for many years, but whenever he went
home to visit he saw grand dad on every street in town.
In the bricks of the homes he had built.
I can't go on the Chicago Skyway without thinking about my dad driving
the Corbett Construction trucks that brought in the materials 50 years
ago, or likewise pass the UIC campus buildings where his crews
hammered in the foundation sheets.
The guys who put up the Twin Towers must have got a warm feeling every
time they looked at the NYC skyline.
Besides all the other tragedies, the towers coming down broke their
hearts.

--Vic