Apprentice-ship

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.

Sunny day blues

I'm one of the few in this well-beached part of the country who does not like baking in the sun. Never have, never will. Growing up, the sun was a mortal enemy - except during the damp, dank monsoons of June-July. And even here, under the gentler northern sun I still don't like being hot and sweaty and shading my eyes - sunglassed and all - from the glare bouncing off the languid Sound lapping contentedly at the edges of our golden town beach. Sunscreen just makes me feel even stickier although I dutifully slap it on. And I worry about my kids who could play at the beach all day if I allowed it, regardless of the blazing sun and the humidity. Oh well, since I am supposed to love it, I suppose I must "enjoy" the beach. Oh I know, boo-hoo you're thinking. But still, we bourgeoisie are allowed to crib too.

Insights from Iraq

I certainly feel the same way as this Iraqi blogger, Hassan Kharrufa, although his need to keep his lives separate has far more urgency than my desire to write freely about my largely peaceful life outside of work in southwestern Connecticut, give or take a few run-in's with carpenters and installers. Not that work is so conflict-ridden either, but then it is only part-time. How sad the Iraqi situation is, how utterly removed from mine. I pray that it continues to be so removed, I know as I write what an utterly selfish thought that is, but when I look at my children, well, that's what I think and any parent reading this will instantly understand and forgive the selfishness. If one didn't know how man-made the situation was, one would just think that the place is cursed, first Saddam, then an uninvited war, then mayhem, then disorder, then mass murder. I guess that's what happens when Trotskyites, former or practising, take charge - permanent revolution in both the US and in Iraq. Thank goodness, Trotsky did not succeed in the former USSR. The plight of the poor Soviets would probably have been much worse if this is the fruit of that philosophy.