Sorry, hypo, but I wrote some stuff about work awhile back
It kinda wanders a bit, but there's some pertinent stuff here and there;
LABOR
Let’s start from the beginning (or as I’ve been told, mine).
Mom was in a maternity ward, toiling away.
Me? I was doing all I could to stay warm, and at home.
I was quite comfy and couldn’t care less about goin’ anywhere.
But this indescribable force propelled me into the chute much like someone cramming dirty laundry into an overstuffed washer.
Seventeen labor filled hours later;
‘Hey, ya oughta see the mutt of a baby next to ours, geeeezus, head looks like a plumb bob!’
The young mother, next to mine, is frowning and signaling with her head toward mom.
Apparently, my trip thru the eerie canal was a tad narrow, and my noggin had taken on the shape of a butternut squash.
And why do they say the mothers are in labor?
Seems the kid is doin’ all the work.
Then again, everything is work, really.
My dad proved this to me all through my growing up years.
I don’t think he ever played a day in his life.
We got a boat, a large one, a cabin cruiser.
Dad had worked day and night to get it. Actually he hadn’t worked to get it. He worked around the clock no matter what we needed or wanted.
The boat just happened to be the thing that seemed would be enjoyable, for the whole family.
Only every aspect about it was made into work.
Even when we were just cruising up the river, ‘Gary, you stand here and watch for dead heads, you know what a dead head is dontcha? A dead head is a log that is just barely stickin’ outta the water…can’t see it right away, but it will tear a hole in the boat, and we’ll all drown.’
‘OK’
‘And tighten that life jacket.’
‘OK’
’Watch out for the wakes of other boats. You can get thrown out.’
‘OK’
‘DON’T TOUCH THAT!!’
‘OK’
‘Fun, huh?’
‘OK’
Years later, I invited Dad to help me knock out a couple buckets of balls at the driving range. Maybe get him away from his life of toil a bit and relax.
Heh.
He swung so hard at those evasive little dimpled eggs, I thought he’d screw himself into the ground. After watching him do several pirouettes, half the time falling down, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing under the sun he didn’t work at.
Turns out, he loved work.
And he wanted me to love it too.
His frustration with me was evident when we’d go into the back yard and ‘just toss the ol’ ball around’.
I had better than average hand/eye coordination, and probably better than average athletic ability, so playing ball came rather easy.
I made it look easy.
No awkward moves.
A bit of flow to things.
He thought I wasn’t playing hard enough.
When he caught the ball, or threw it, he’d make a little grunt.
Actually he made that little grunt just picking up the newspaper, or shaving…’See you just take little strokes, ungh, like that, ungh.’
In ‘just tossing the ol’ ball around’, he always had a fixed, determined stare….at the ball, coupled with a grim look, like he was just sentenced to a life of breaking rocks.
I’d toss it back to him and watch his countenance tighten into a grimace as the ball sailed into his out stretched glove.
If I threw a moderately wild one, and he happened to miss it, he’d scurry back to get it like Peewee Reese was stealing home.
‘OK, let’s see how your fast ball is doin’.’
‘Hey, nice curve, you’ve got a natural curve ball, boy.’
(my fast ball is goin’ so slow he thinks it’s a curve ball)
‘One more hard one.’
Four hours of ‘one more hard one’ into the dark of night, three hours after Mom had advised that, ‘our #&*%# dinner is getting #&*%# cold’, I was given permission to carry my arm inside and plop it on the table.
It was work.
I liked to play.
But this is what I’ve come to determine; play is just fun work.
In my very early childhood years, I had several small toy cars and trucks. These were mostly rubber with yellow wheels. Several decades later, I looked up these cars. They were made by Auburn Rubber Company. I had the ’56 Plymouth wagon, the ’57 Ford Ranchero, the T-Bird, and the ’32 deuce coupe hot rod. I also had the red Harley, but it was larger and my early obsessions would never allow myself to incorporate it into the scheme of things.
That scheme was building towns and neighborhoods.
The whole back yard was my universe.
I did my best to make it all as realistic as possible, carving roads in the side of the hill and building tiny houses and stores out of bricks and 2x4 mill ends. Using care to keep it all in scale.
Tuna cans became swimming pools.
Weeds became landscaping.
Tag, my overgrown ogre giant dog, became a pest.
The scourge of Tiny Town.
A happy, playful scourge.
Sometimes kids would come over, and bring their cars.
Only their cars were too big. They hadn’t noticed.
I preferred to just play by myself.
My very own dirt erector set.
I needed nothing or anyone else.
But
The fun was in building. Once everything was built, it was over.
If I did let a kid play with me, they’d get all wrapped up in a plot of some kind, and jabber away at who everyone was, and several scenes would be discussed. None of that did anything for me.
I did, however, in my toddler years, sit in on a couple tea parties my sister and Bessie Dodge put on.
But, they too were enmeshed in setting up scenarios. It was as though they were miniature playwrights, discussing various acts and scenes. And I, I was the best boy, or key grip, or maybe gaffer.
‘OK, you were upset because Rock Hudson didn’t show up, but I was happy because my handsome boyfriend, Cary Grant, was here, more tea?’
(seems I was hauled in to be the Cary Grant stand in)
The tea (tepid water), and the mud scones (mud scones) looked quite inviting, all set up on the tiny card table with frilly napkins and minute fine chinette.
Little did we know, back in those days, that Mr Hudson was with a young stud by the name of Maurice, busy getting his mud scone packed rather deep into his pooper.
After initial set up, all this became an unbearable bore. So, as interest faded, and the mud around my lips dried (yes, I actually ate the scones) I sidled away from their little playhouse setting, finding fascination with bugs and ants and a magnifying glass.
It seems, at least in the ‘50s, that ‘play’ was a bit overrated and overplayed…….I guess hyped would be the word.
TV ads would show kids eyes light up when they played with things like Tinker toys and Lincoln Logs, or (be still my heart) Lionel trains.
They would say things like ‘Gee’ and Gosh’ and have an eternal smile pasted on their little gleeful mugs.
So, me and sis would be layin’ on the floor, elbows helping our hands prop our faces up, starin’ at the grey and white ads, absorbing thoughts like, ‘Huh, so that’s what happy looks like.’
Parents would look on, paralyzed with guilt, unable to flip the channel, mainly because that was the only one that had decent reception, let alone have to get up and turn the knob.
Come to think about it, actual play hardly existed back then.
Anticipation
Unwrapping
Putting together (by illiterate overconfident parents that abhorred reading any printed matter)
Crying
Going to bed
That’s what mostly existed.
I just liked building, fun work.
Around twelve, or maybe thirteen, we moved further out of town. The neighborhood was spread out and six acres of woods, that bordered a few thousand acres of woods, was our back yard.
I scrounged some 2x4s and sheets of ply, along with some sheets of tin and fashioned myself a little hut. I loosely called it my cabin.
It was just a lean-to with homemade door and scavenged cot.
However, it was mine, my place.
Again, once it was built the fun was over.
Sure, I’d sleep in it sometimes, but it was cold, and damp, and leaked like a sieve. I learned to appreciate the finer things of life, like a house, and a proper bed, and a refrigerator, and a toilet.
That work thing that my dad was so enrapt in took on a whole new admiration.
Homework
‘Oh, your wife stays at home.’
Heh.
My wife worked eighteen to twenty hours a day, seven days a week.
We still have old movies of her, tethered to the stove and sink.
I learned of this type of career quite early in our marriage.
‘Honey, would you watch the baby? I need to go to the store.’
‘No worries, baby. Take yer time.
Toddlers have one gear…scoot.
I think our first born was around 8 months, or 18 months.
Stay at home mothers keep a log of birthdays.
Dads are too busy with pet/child recognition.
Anyhoot, all I had to do was watch the little critter.
What could be so hard about that?
Wife’s gone, kid is quiet, I’m just gonna ease onto the couch, open the paper and catch up on anything sports.
Seems there was a tiny shadow flitting by.
The sound of a diaper rustle entered the fading reaches of my posterior lobe.
Next thing I know, my lady is comin’ in the door.
Easy peasy
I shoulda told her about those naps
Yeah, right
Aristotle