Men At Work

Throughout most of this winter nobody who lives in this neighborhood has needed a clock to tell them when it is 7:00am. Promptly at 7:00am the sounds of large machinery being started up has echoed through the blocks in the area surrounding Washington Street. From the statue of Joan of Arc up to Turtle Alley Chocolates, Washington Street is an obstacle course of mounds of dirt, stones and other stuff, huge, gigantic yellow backhoes, diggers and shovels of various sorts, and lots of men digging and moving and hauling and .... well, all that stuff that working men do.

I don’t know what they are doing. Something about the sewers. I try not to think too much about what goes on under the ground. It makes me nervous. Philosopher Sam Keen once said that a truly moral person, when he pours a glass of water, always thinks, “Where did this water come from and where will it go when I pour it down the drain?” I’ve thought about that — a little.

The construction on Washington Street has certainly cut down on traffic on my street which is a one way street anyhow. Lately I’ve had a lot of clients needing to drop work off and I’ve told them it is easier to just stick it in the mail, you can’t get here from there.

But I confess that I like the sounds out there. There is something comforting and pleasant about hearing the sounds of work going on. There are beeps as one machine backs up, and loud, clanking thuds as the steam shovels scoop stuff up and drop it somewhere else. I don’t know what the heck is going on — I hope they do — but it is nice to know something is being done.

One of my favorite sounds in all the world is the hammers-on-wood sound of houses being built. I know that is a childhood thing from when it was my Dad who was the one up there in those frameworks that had that delicious fresh-cut wood smell and that thick, resounding thumping sound as the nails that held the frames together were hammered into place by the muscles of men. That’s a stirring thought, too. Here in Gloucester they talk about the old days of fishing which they refer to as the days of “wooden ships and iron men”. I love that expression. From the stories I have read about the men of that era, they were made of iron.

Yesterday when I left Mark was mowing the lawn. His shoulder hurts when he works for very long these days. He injured it playing baseball when he was in high school, compounded it when he had the beds while working as a commercial diver, and then really wrecked it along with his back, hauling lobster traps up from the bottom of the ocean when the hydro-slave was straining and something was slowing things down. Now, in his mid-fifties, that shoulder is a mess. That is the price those iron men pay.

I remember my father in his old age saying that every time it rained he felt every bundle of shingles he ever carried up a ladder on his back. I think about these things as I hear those men at work out on Washington Street. They have big equipment and more safety devices now but still, I watch them when they pick up a shovel or an ax or a pick and go down into the hole to do what the big machines cannot do. It is hard work despite the advances of technology.

So today I am working at my computer and men are working out in the street. I appreciate what they are doing out there and I think about them as they work and I work. And I am glad they are there to do what needs to be done to keep my world running.

Thanks for reading.