THE BLUE COLLAR TRAP

"A lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world, than which there is nothing more tender, nothing more delicate, nothing more calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished within it.  Those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music.  The mystic chords which bind and thrill the heart of the nation, they will never know"--Sister Carrie

Today at archive.org I rewatched the 1972 NBC News White Paper documentary "The Blue Collar Trap." Back when I was ten, we saw it on American TV when we were visiting the USA.  Our visit came in the wake of Hurricane Agnes, at the time of the Watergate break-in. (When Mother heard about in in the news, she predicted it would prove important!) We were also in the Washington DC underground parking lot where Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein would soon meet Deep Throat...

Anyway, this documentary focused on four young men working at a Ford Pinto factory in California.  A couple of them had fought in Vietnam, one was a "hippie," and one went to this ecstatic church where people were dancing in the aisles. (I'd always imagined church services as quiet, restrained affairs...) They seldom voted on union matters, let alone in public elections.  One of them mentioned that when he was starting out the foreman advised him that instead of staying there he should go back to school and get a better job.  

Watching it today, I couldn't help considering that this was near the end of the "golden age" for the American working class; things have since got harder for them. Of course, this was a decade before Van Gordon Sauter dumbed down CBS News (giving anchorman Dan Rather a jersey to wear on air, etc.) and NBC and ABC followed suit, leaving them unlikely to produce reports this thoughtful again.

But what do I know about physical work?  Well, the last few days I've moved a huge amount of dirt to the back yard from our cellar, and I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my scalp!  I've been wearing gloves, but my hands are still getting sore in places. (A couple of times I've forgotten that I have to tie my shoes before putting my gloves on.) We have ten buckets, and my favourite four are relatively small, with handles.  Two others are small but don't have handles; three have handles but are larger; and my least favourite is large without a handle!  John's also using a jackhammer to break up these cement steps that used to be part of a cellar door, but led to nowhere after the room was built over them.

I've now started watching the anime sequel Dragon Ball Z.  It looks pretty good so far, with Goku dead and seeking martial-arts training in the after-world. (The others plan to use the seven dragon balls to bring him back.) His little son Gohan is undergoing a sort of manhood training alone in the wilderness to develop his immense fighting potential. All this is in preparation for fighting two Saiyan aliens who will arrive on Earth within a year in the hope of destroying it...  What an imagination Akira Toriyama has!

I've already finished Level 1 in the Royal Conservatory's Celebrate Theory series, and the other day Carolyn brought me 2 and 3. (At that Friday Zoom.com session, she and someone else are at level 4, and I should be caught up with them before long.)