Happy May Day!
I haven't updated this blog in a while and I do apologize as
I have found myself extremely busy.
Like most in America, I have found myself busy with work. I should clarify as I do enjoy a good
day of work. What I mean is my JOB. The activity that which takes up most
of the hours of my life and pays for the roof over my head, the food on the
table and the clothes on my back.
I could bitch and moan about how much I am dis-satisfied with my job,
but that would be preaching to the choir, right? I do not mind putting in my
time to earn a wage, but within reason.
I find myself spending 9, 10 sometimes 12 hours of my day dedicated to
my job in order to meet deadlines.
Bringing work home with me.
Getting up earlier to get some things done before my phone starts
ringing and distracts me from my
assigned tasks. If this job
was my passion, or paid me a larger salary, I'd feel better about the 50 hour
weeks. But it is not, and
therefore I watch the days pass, wanting like most, the time to spend with my
daughter or go out to the woods for a day of fishing or working on my
garage.
Today is May 1st. “May Day” or International Worker’s Day. As I celebrate this day labor I want to
tell you about a park in my hometown of Milwaukee WI. In this park there is a forgotten monument that sits in the
ground with grass and weeds hiding it from view. A metaphor to our fading historical memory. The monument memorializes a day in the
1886 when a massacre happened at a steel mill that once sat on that spot. Workers in the mill went on
strike. The steel company sent in
their thugs to break up the strike.
The strikers refuse to yield so the state where dispatched to break up
the strike and protect the factory.
As the workers march onto the factory the nervous troops opened fire on
the unarmed strikers killing seven and wounding many. What were the mill workers striking for? What did some die for? They were demanding an eight-hour work
day. Like many factory workers in
America at the time they were forced to work 12 to 16 hour shifts in dangerous
conditions and live in cramped company houses. (sound familiar) The unions organized demanding safe
working conditions, better wages and the eight-hour day. "8 HOURS OF WORK, 8 HOURS OF SLEEP
AND 8 HOURS TO DO AS YOU WILL!" was their slogan. Oh how I want those eight hours
to do as I will. Where's my union
rep? Long gone. Actually I'm part of the management team, so
I guess I would have been on the other side.
But back to my May Day Celebration…I want to tell you a
little about the city I grew up in.
Milwaukee, once a manufacturing Mecca of the mid-west, cradle of
progressive politics and blue-collar fraternal union. The only city in America that voted into power the Socialist
Party that held the Mayor's office from 1910 until the 1960. Developing a governing philosophy of
“Public Enterprise”. Known as the “Sewer
Socialists as they strived clean up government and provide their citizens
working sewers, good roads and decent public education. (I can see why so many feel frighten by
socialism!)
I think of the blue-collar middle class neighborhood I grew up in. Most of folks living there had manufacturing jobs and were members of a union. In fact, at their peak in the 50's through the late 70's 8 out of 10 manufacturing workers in Milwaukee (and most of the U.S.) were union members. The middle class was broad and strong. People in my neighborhood were able, on their blue collar wages, buy a house, send their kids to college, and provide a pretty stable environment for their family. I remember many strikes as a kid. I remember the big factories shutting down to move out of the US for the cheaper labor. Big names like Allis Chalmers, Harnischfeger, Johnston Controls, and Caterpillar. Even the factories that made Milwaukee famous, Schlitz, Blats, Pabst were bought up, boarded up and shipped out. The empty factories turned into shopping centers for K-marts, Wallmarts and Home Depots. The arguments started and still plays out today; Where the unions to unyielding and spoiled that they drove the jobs over seas, or did greed? I do wonder. I’ve seen first hand union cronyism, but I also look at a company like Apple that makes billions in profits while the people who make their products work in similar conditions of those who died in the 1886 massacre. While in the U.S. the resentment of those not being able to have a decent paying job or a secure life has somehow been directed against the entity that once built our middle class. The unions have been decimated , the middle class is crumbling and the last havens of union security are now caught in a witch hunt. Being hunted down and snuffed out as many watch from the sidelines stating "I don't get these kind of benefits, why should they?" Now I recently read an article in the Economist how manufactures are starting to move their operations back to America because Chinese labor is getting to expensive. And I, like many Americans now work 10 to 12 hour days. Go figure.
But enough of my socialistic babble. What the hell is going on with my
garage? As I said, I've had little
time to work on it. Perhaps I’ve
never really had a lot of time as this has been a slow process, but I'm growing
more impatient to get this thing on a foundation. The winds have been relentless this past winter and I've
spent an unyielding amount of time repairing my garage tent. Things have kept pretty dry all things
considered and my lovely green tarp continues to hold.
I did have to spend some money on some heavy equipment in
order to break up the perimeter of the existing slab. I needed to gain at least 8 inches to put in the form for
the new spread footing. I rented a
concrete saw for a couple of hours to score a nice clean line. This was a bit of a challenge to
control this saw in such a confined space without killing my lower back. Not to mention the exhaust. It was like having my mouth on the tail
pipe of a car. (talk about
creating my own safe working conditions) I was pretty light headed by the time
I finished and covered with water and concrete dust. I was under the delusion that the slab was only 4"
thick, so I thought that I could simply bust it up with a sledge hammer and
some brute force. I was sadly mistaken. My fist swing at the concrete could
have been the inspiration to a
Bugs Bunny cartoon. As the
head of the sledge hammer made contact with concrete I anticipated some push
back, but not to the degree that I ended up feeling. The impact shooting right through my arms through my
shoulders straight through my spine to my hips and eventually my knees. I stepped back for a moment and
realized I had to rent even more equipment. Thus started my second journey to the tool rental store (Center Tool Rental in White Center is great!) to get me something fun!
Although I found
that there was really no attempt to level the ground before the slab was
poured so the slab was any where from 4 to 8" thick as I pulled it out.
Once I had that out. Yes, it was time for more digging. But I’ll spare you that and get to the
next exciting phase. But right
now, I have to get back to my job.
 |
| Nice and clean |
