Neanderpundit

I just found one close to the house. Looking forward to going there for an old fashioned shave-and-haircut. Doubt it will be two bits.

Fifteen bucks, the brotherinlaw says. Says he does the whole haircut thing and then gives you the scalp/shoulder massage with the vibratey hand thingy. I haven’t done that since I still had my first case of razor burn, I’m looking forward to this.

I have been, and will always be, a member of the craftsman class. I have done a great deal of different types of work, from carpentry to cabinetmaking, from machining to manufacturing. I am very, very good at what i do, and I take a great deal of pride in my work. There are a handful of people like me in the world, and not a solitary thing exists without us. We make the things that make everything else, and by definition, we understand how they all work. I’ve met a half-dozen men like this, and the seven of us could, I believe, accomplish anything. We each have skills in a wide variety of disciplines, and we have the ability to adapt quickly to new disciplines. The educational system stifles the ability in people like me, and most of us barely get out alive.

The inventiveness and ingenuity of people like myself made America. The industrial revolution proceeds apace, but nobody knows it. Every day I’m called upon to solve problems that never existed before. Every day I develop solutions that nobody has ever imagined. People like myself are making it possible for you to drive your car 200,000 miles without changing the grease in the wheel bearings, for instance. Twenty years ago, bearings of that quality didn’t exist, lubricants with that lifespan were unheard of. All those improvements in quality and durability and design are due to men like me working away where nobody knows what they are doing.

Except other people.

Like me.

Tomorrow as you go about your business, look at the guy in the Carharts getting a coffee at the gas station. He may be out there changing your life without you ever knowing it.