There are a number of young men, boys really, working on our construction site of a home. Now that we are back in the house, I observe them much more as they hammer and saw and chisel and nail. One just celebrated his nineteenth birthday last week, he informed me as he swung shovelsful of dirt to fill up a hole. Another, from Costa Rica, mournfully informed me of Costa Rica's elimination from the ongoing World Cup. The painter's assistant from Brazil, is friends with the Costa Rican, and somehow the Portuguese-Spanish conversation is mutually comprehensible thanks to the passion both share for soccer. I don't want to comment on them as individuals - they are all quite nice - but I do notice how very young they are and how hard they are working. I suppose this is the class system at work. The neighborhood teens cycle off to swimming and to hang out at friends' houses and these young men from Stratford and Milford and Trumbull build their houses.
There doesn't seem to be any rancor though, no scoffing at the rich people whose houses they build. I think this is because they are all skilled workers who take great pride in what they create. These young men stand around after a hard days' work admiring the shine of the newly-finished cherry floors and at the craftsmanship of the master tiler who arranged the foyer tiles just so. Also, there is a pairing off. The contractor and his son, the electrician and his son, the mason and his son, sort of like the old days of apprenticeship when knowledge was handed down from father to son. Except there is no absolute guarantee that the sons will follow in the fathers' footsteps. Just the assurance of a wise, second opinion to fall back on.
And then there are the fatherless ones - the assistants who place themselves under the supervision of the contractor and who learn from him, from master craftsman to apprentice craftsmen, the knowledge chain continues.
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