Working People #1

I am quitting that shithole, Jen, I’ve had it!  

Les slow down what’s wrong now, Jen is in the kitchen and walks into the dining room, and she sees Les has already dropped into the rocking chair with his dirty work clothes on. Jen grimaces a little as she has seen this little act too many times lately. I thought you were ok with the pay cut I thought you said it was the least you could do to save some of the other guy’s jobs. Les looks at her, he has a weight in his eyes, in the curve of his shoulders.

Those bastards don’t care that’s the problem, we take the pay cut to save the company, to save our hides and they don’t care. They put 400 A45d axle brackets on today that were not in spec. I showed it to the foreman at 9 AM today and the line stopped the production planner came over and checked it out. They called upstairs and must have been told to keep going, there were no other parts in the plant. I asked the foreman if they were going to change them out offline and he said likely.

Well, later on, I was out talking to Rick and I notices some of the axles were already crated and on the dock. I said to Rick where are these going and said they were needed at B plant like yesterday and were going out the door. Jen I don’t think those cars will be unsafe but they will wear out darn quick, we are building crap.

Jen came over and rubbed Les’ back, he pulled away. Hey buddy I didn’t do anything to you what’s the story? I’m just tense Les whines, I need a break or something, that place is killing me, Les touches her arm. You make good money Les and we need the benefits, we can’t just have you walk away from that.

We are taking the pay cut Jen, but if we don’t have the quality it will be for nothing and we will be on the street. I can’t work for people I have no faith in, people who would put profit over quality, people who don’t give a damn. It grinds you down to do something every day that you hate, that you do in good faith, but it doesn’t result in respect from your boss or from the customer.

I remember back 15 years ago when we built a product we were proud of one that let you sleep, and it’s funny but during that time our wages were the envy of many other plants, not that the two went together, but I think that they could afford the wages due to the respect the axles and trannies we build allowed. We had a good product that we sold at a good price. We bought the cars that our stuff went into because we trusted our work and a company that would pay for our work. We were a team, Jen.

This current wages bullshit is only to maintain their profit while they cut the costs of the junk we sell to move it. We are all buying whatever cars as we can’t judge what is good, we just smother them with warranty and hope for the best. 

Go change your clothes, suppers ready, I’ll pop open a beer for you. Jen turns Les sits there another moment then goes upstairs.

Jen is sitting at Mannie’s Pizza with her Dad on Thursday noon. Dad, you worked at the plant for 40 years and you seemed Ok with it? Jen, says Karl Jergens grabbing her hand with his rough old paw, Jen smiles. I worked in a different time we fought for those wages and the working conditions, quality was the concern of everyone but we made sure we were protected from them buggers, first and foremost. Everyone bought American cars and we had no issues with selling product, it’s different now and it’s been different for a long time, it was already changing in my last 20 years. Les is a good guy and he knows stuff so he knows junk when he sees it and maybe that’s not a good thing. I bet a lot of the other guys are more concerned with their own issues than whether or not something wears out early on someone else’s car. I heard that management over there doesn’t care anymore they have kicked the can too long and the plant is too old to build a line that can produce a product with more quality and fewer people. The word on the street is that there is a new plant in Honduras that is up to date with a smaller cheaper workforce. I hear that they’re even going to give those workers some benefits to keep the do-gooders off their tails.

What’s the answer dad? What can we do? Well Jen for the good of the family Les needs to get out before they kick him out. He’s a smart guy and he can find something. He is always messing with computers and has fixed Mom’s a couple of times after she gets one of those Trojans or whatever they are. A lot more people around here are going to be keeping stuff a lot longer as the good jobs go way and people who can fix the stuff will find work. Les can do it and that company will miss him, well maybe.

Jen sits in the Delta Armouries on Sunday morning with Les, they got a gift certificate for brunch for their 20^th anniversary. Jen has related the talk she had with her Dad. Les sits silent for a few minutes. In a bit he leans back. No unbuttoning your pants here Les she quips, he smiles. Jen are you telling me you can endure some tough times if I make some plans and quit the plant? Look Les says Jen, you are not happy and I am not going to endure that much longer, you need to get your shit together soon. If that means drawing up some plans and moving forward and away from that plant then let’s go. Les is silent again, he is afraid, but he is more afraid of being in the huge group that will be on the street when that plant closes.

I have some ideas Jen, I will get to work, I am sorry I have been such a bear for these past months. Jen looks into his eyes and maybe she sees a little spark.

Arkansas Traveller

I like it when I see different license plates. It gets my mind travelling to the why they are here and who they are. Not a Michigan plate, or one from Quebec, New York, or Ohio, but one from further afield. Thursday morning there was someone from Arkansas in front of me on the way to London 8 AM in the snow. Why was this Southern US person here?  There it is, a license plate as an acknowledgement of difference, I know something, the car is from away, and likely the driver is from away as well. The lack of familiarity is shallow, though.

The car is a Mustang one of the most recognizable cars in North America. The driver of course is following the rules of the road and I am sure Arkansas road law is very similar to ours. To punctuate this a School Bus slows and turns on the red safety lights, the Arkansas Mustang instinctively slows and stops. The driver is in the same cultural place as I am regardless of the 1600 KM distance from their home to ours.  I assume if the driver stopped at a restaurant and I followed they would address the wait staff in English (though the accent may indicate something to the waiter about the customer, but we’ve heard it before) and if they needed to pee and the driver was a man or woman they would know what the various types of signs that indicate male and female facilities mean. I have a comfortable feeling about the person from Arkansas.

What if the world was bigger, or cars slower, or travel complicated somehow, if we didn’t have access to international media? What if I had never seen a license plate other than one from Ontario? What if either Mustang was not sold in Ontario or the Arkansas car was a make and model totally foreign to me? What if the Arkansas traveller did not know the red school bus light rule and by their driving I could observe the hesitation to react but due to the queue of the cars around then they finally do. We stop at the restaurant and the language is English but what if I and the waiter had never heard an accent like the one the traveller possessed? What if the bathroom signs were the type without words and the Arkansas person hesitated in their choice? What if the Arkansas Traveller was the same in every way except for a very few social, cultural, material queues, but my field of experience was way different? How would I feel?

I am secure with the real Arkansas Traveller she/he is no threat or little wonder to me. The hypothetical Arkansas person by my lack of experience and their slight difference would raise more concern. The person and their home would be no different but my emotions, would be. My gut would be.

It is not my fault that my feeling differs for the hypothetical Traveller. It is certainly not the fault of the person from imaginary Arkansas. What is my responsibility when I feel fear, worry, and discomfort? I cannot help my feelings, my fear, I can help my reaction. I acknowledge that I own my feeling not the Traveller. If I create a narrative good or bad in my head it is my narrative not that of the stimulus.

Travellers (and newcomers) to Canada, to Ontario. I will deal with that which I create in my own head, it’s mine to own and I will rise to welcome you.

Disenfranchised

Getting through this day,

just like yesterday.

Your issues aren’t mine,

mine are more now-ish, more personal.

Your platitudes fall short of motivation,

I am moved by the things wrenching my gut.

Your look of confidence, I can’t afford it.

You can’t either, but you don’t know.

Three jobs, no job, no respect.

The pundits recommend RRSP, TFSA.

I recommend food, rent, a coffee, maybe a smoke,

laughing, talking in front of Timmy’s on Thames.

Sure your cause is significant,

sure I understand but,

my Kids, my wife,  

my partially severed social connections, 

baggage left over from childhood,

disrupts sympathy for you.

Then, of course, you judge,

my age, my clothes,

my colour, my gender,

my asymmetrical face.

It’s not your intent but....

I am a we, a big we,
you need to know.
Time changes things,

my issues will become ‘the issues’.

You think I am asleep?

Look closer.

Without Despair

I have been loved, and have loved for so long now I have forgotten loneliness, I have dismissed despair. The heart of a strong family, the task of caring have insulated me. Now though, despair so desperate has dropped in my lap, flowed over me like a cold shower. The despair is not mine or that of my clan, but that of a sister in the greater community. We interacted only for a short time, our lives only in step for a brief few minutes, but she and we will never be the same. The path has changed some amount I am not yet fully aware, I may never pin it down but it is changed.

All of us are born we travel through this great human wilderness and most find refuge from the cold of having no one, or believing we have no one. Most for a time in our lives get lost, left cold without love. Some stay cold too long and cannot get warm again. Some succumb to the cold. Will she get warm?

It’s too soon to know where my soul will go from here, it’s too soon to unpack this event fully. We are lucky, returned to our warmth, instantly back in the comfort of family, we never left it, but what about her? Did she feel any warmth in those moments? Will someone fill the void? I may never know.

I will wake up many mornings taking for granted my extraordinary life, that is human weakness. I hope though, she does wake to find some of the love that I will often consider ordinary. Will she be without despair?

Ingersoll Dec 24th 2067

A shrivelled, wrinkled man of apparent great age crouches close to a young girl dressed in rags of clothing in a style we don’t recognize. They in the corner of a hovel partly constructed of a cement foundation of an early 21^st century home.

Well Darla, it is Christmas Eve again, I can’t recount how many for me but it is fifteen for you. Darla looks incredulous at her Grandpa. Papa I do not know your fascination with this date, it’s a cold and bare time of year, we couldn’t have less, few squirrels, mice or roots and berries, and we sit here with little to celebrate, but grey and desperate cold.  Hard times spreads out in front of us until spring brings us some meagre relief. I know your Christmas story well but its meaning escapes me. Darla leans back against the cold wall and winces at the chill it gives her back. Papa puts another twig on the tiny fire that sheds so little heat Darla wonders what the point is, though at night that small light gives her some safety or at least a feeling of such. Well I suppose says Papa that talk of cheery Christmas is not a light for someone who has seen only dark Darla, I understand your bitterness.

 There is a part of my Christmas story that I have not told as you have been too young till now, it is a true story, but cruel to hear in the gloom of our current state. I have spoken of the celebration, the tree, the good will of strangers to one another at this time of the year, I have talked of family and friends by our sides when I was young, but the story has a less than glorious side my dear.

Darla we had so much in those times, even the poorest in Canada had more than you can imagine. Darla sat up and looked her Papa in the eye, this was a new tale and any tale is good but a new one is as sweet as anything that the tongue could taste. There was no pleasure in these times except in a good story and Darla was always ready for the feast of words Papa or others could feed her. Papa’s grim look though gave her pause.

Darla at all times of the year back then the average person had much more than anyone today could dream. If you had any means at all there was more food, more clothing, more everything than you can hope to imagine. You have seen some of the remnants of past times in our travels but let me tell you Darla it was a glorious time, a time so very rich. We all walked and proceeded in a confidence that only generations of full bellies and warmth and comfort could give. We were a beautiful, wasteful people always buying more than we needed and making many things with little purpose and limited life that we would discard without even a thought to the consequence. Our homes were full of many things and too much of everything and each home was warm in winter and cool in summer and we never suffered in any way. We had cupboards full of food, and if we were wanting for anything there were great huge markets that had unlimited food, that never emptied, ever. We suffered from ill health due to too much food. Darla you have seen the ruins of the large market, close your eyes and picture the smells of fresh bread, prepared meats, the colours, the abundance. Darla could not imagine because she had never experienced anything like this, her food was at best a raspberry or two in July, precious few for far too many people and at worst the dung of some animal, and many various nasty and less than appealing morsels in between.

Now as I said Christmas was a wonderful time for friends, family and human decency, but Darla it was also a time of even more grand consumption, mounds of food no one could eat, drink and gifts of all sorts. It was a time specifically known for giving and getting more than was necessary, eating more than we needed and throwing much away without thought. Darla I have always spoken with happiness about Christmas, but there is hellishness in it as well, it was a signpost of all that was sick in my time, and an arrow pointing to the bleak place we are today. We all knew deep down we were using too much, the scientists and the moral, ethical voices of our time said we were using too much. We didn’t listen, we were looking for something in our possessions, in our consumption, something that wasn’t there.

Papa looked at Darla, pale, skinny, cold. Darla stared at Papa and she saw a tear in his eye. No one cried in Darla’s days as loss was so common and life so tenuous that all were numb to suffering, but Papa was remembering the splendor and the waste, and in the comparison with the dire nothing that Darla knows he experienced the loss for her. Papa cried for the meat, potatoes, pie, candy that went in the trash. He cried for Darla as he had watched her eat the foulest things with craven desire himself knowing that even potato skins, banana peels or stale mouldy bread from his youth would be a king’s feast in comparison. He cried for his own hell that is the knowledge of the world his generation, and his father’s generation destroyed. Papa cried for Christmas, he cried at allowing the truth to overcome the pleasant Christmas memory he had built for Darla and himself.

Darla needed to know the truth about the old world for she would have to build a new world if she could out of the mess left by the ones called the Baby Boomers and their offspring, of which Papa was one of the later. Darla needed the truth as a caution so if and when she and hers regained control of the world they could make it better.

Darla cuddled into the crook of her Grandpa’s arm and hummed the tune she knew was of Christmas, it was not Night but it was Silent, Darla didn’t know about Holy, as Holy had no meaning when all hope is drained away.

This is a story and nothing more. It is written not to upset, but to present a view. I am not depressed in telling this tale but only made thoughtful and wish only thoughtfulness for you. We can make a world where this story could never take place. We can write our own Christmas story.

death today

dying in the street
runs off my rails of hope
city of light gone dark
more afraid of the establishment reaction
less afraid of the death dealers
can’t push out the glass half full
bombs and guns
borders close
minds close
doors of empathy slam shut
feeding the haters
rise tomorrow Paris
rise tomorrow peace

I Must Understand

I must understand that the world I imagine can never be.
I must understand that I must never stop imagining a good world.
I must understand that the world is not going to change unless I take action.
I must understand that many will not understand my actions as world building.
I must understand that I will misunderstand the actions others are taking in pursuit of their own imagined world.
I must understand that my perception and their perception of the good world are similar even if they are taking what seems a wholly dissimilar path.
I must understand.

Shared Reality

I can’t do the darn loon call. My sons can and I hold nothing but pride that they can make the sound of the loon. My Dad tried to teach me umpteen times to do that call and it never happened, but in a half hour session in his apartment a few years ago he laid the groundwork of success for the boys. 

The loon call to Dad is more than an interesting noise to make at family gatherings or at Pog Lake in Algonquin Park in the summers of my youth. Dad made that call with his friends in the 50s in their intricate games of war, they would use it as a signal to warn of whatever offence or defence was necessary to vanquish the enemy.  The call is connected from my sons back in time to his creek, his old forgotten piece of rail bed and his friends and foes in a different Woodstock and Canada than exists today. 

I have waxed poetic about my own life at the creek and bush behind our house in the 70s but Dad and I share this story line. Dad was at the beginning of the big wave of post war Kids we have come to call the Boomers and I was at the end.  His youth was my youth, He and his friends  laid the groundwork for the world the Boomers now lament is gone and I was the last recipient of the freedom that the tons of Kids everywhere all the time enjoyed in order to maintain the sanity of our parents.

 

The story is not just ours but it is everyone’s. It is the story of a time when play mostly meant fun and learning to live with the many personalities that were in the parks, the school yard and the hidden places where real imagination takes place. Some Kids got hurt, though I can’t remember many that were too serious, I did my share of bleeding and so did my friends. Some kids ended up at the bottom of the social heap and some rose to the top. I found myself often floating between the top and bottom, sometimes in physical and emotional pain and sometimes in the bliss of wonderful experiences. Is the pain necessary for the full understanding when life is really good? 

My Dad has more stories and it would be nice to write some down, this short report is about the connection between a boy born in 1944 and another in 1963 and the stability of the years in between. Both my Dad and I basked in the unquestioned world being built by our parents in post war Canada. 

 I still love the memory of the creek and the places away from adult’s sensible eyes. I think my Dad feels the same.

I Hate Golf Courses

I hate golf courses. Not all golf courses, only one specific one and the fact that there are so many. I don't hate the game of golf, though I don’t enjoy it. Golf courses are everywhere; they are prolific, and exclusive. They exclude by membership, or fee, or by the single pursuit they allow. Golf courses are often built near water and gag access to it. they inhabit the lands at the edge of town, or near a sterile suburb gaining tax dollars for the Municipality from the more valuable homes built near them.

A kid leaves through the aluminium screen door, the yard dotted with trees barely taller than this skinny blond tramp, he leaves the perfect grass the perfectly laid out Places, Drives and cul-de-sac. He leaves the perfect planned sameness. Pocket knife in tow from that trip to Old Fort Henry in Kingston a summer or so ago. T-shirt and 619 Levis, dog at his side he rounds the corner out of the suburban monotony. He can see it, down at the end of the street, corn now turning brown in the September sun. He sees the trees, the scrub, he knows this place, it is his home, the old piece of rail bed from some long forgotten branch line, the field, the creek the paths made by Kids just like him. He talks to the dog with the same colour hair as he, it is on a lead but he reminds it to heal, the dog tries to walk close and keep his pace. He is almost there he has no plan today it is just the two of them good master, good dog. In a minute the dog will run free and so will he.

Another day it is under the bed and in the dresser drawer of his basement lair, Crossman pellet rifle and the steel can of ‘bullets’. Out the door, Dean is just rounding the corner the boy pops across the street to collect Rob, the three are not out for mayhem, no trouble in their minds, they are marksmen, tin cans, chunks of bark and that first golden leaf on the otherwise green tree are the targets. They walk through the streets with the rifle barrels ‘cracked’ to indicate to the windows and wind chimes they mean no harm. The destination is the field, the creek, the rail bed. They will not return until hunger can no longer be ignored.

It is 1975 or 76, it is freedom, it is nature and fishing and bruises, dirt and snapping turtles, it is heaven.

Rush ahead almost forty years, the suburb is different. The trees are much bigger; it is a little less sterile. Just try to carry that mostly harmless rifle through the streets. Out the door down the street and around the corner and a bit there is a fence and beyond the fence perfect grass, fake landscape features, and sand traps. The kid of 2014 is stopped blocked by the exclusive golf course, even if he hops the fence, to what end?

Yes I hate golf courses. 

Just Are

The trees are not green in our honour.

The flowers do not bloom in colourful glory for our amusement.

Nature does not burst forth each spring as if beholding to people.

We are not the purpose of the majestic lustful rebirth.

No bird sings its tune for our ears.

It is not at our discretion that life is, though we seem to think so.

What ego we have to think of some mastery of the things that we must have,

things we will not live without.

They do not need us, and without us will thrive.

They will not cease to bloom, sing, procreate just because we are gone on the wind.

Open your eyes weak humans, know that you are but a wisp in the full gale of nature,

know that you are not the master but the prodigy of all that is.

Cast your eyes on your reflection and see now a being with no greater grandeur than the dandelion or the butterfly.

No purpose, but to be as the fish, the beaver, and the maple just are.