Uh oh

Just talked to my Dad. I raised the issue of going to school for welding. Dad was not warm to the idea. His first shot over the bow of the good ship My Future was, "Welders are a dime a dozen, kid."

Now, where have I heard that before? Oh that's right. All my life I've heard that whenever I voiced a career aspiration to my father.

I corrected my father on that point. Welders are not, in fact, a dime a dozen. And there are more jobs for welders out there than there are for Chiefs-of-Staff for elected officials or Executive Directors of non-profit organizations.

Then, Dad took a different tact. "That's not the way to go. You've got to work with your mind. Not with your back. Welding is hot and dirty work."

Huh.

How to explain to my Dad that the 'hot and dirty' is appealing to me?

I think it sounds too much like mining. My people are from the anthracite regions of Pennsylvania. In my grandparents' generation, everyone had managed to get out of the mines. My paternal grandfather came down to Philadelphia, and managed to get a job as the painting foreman for the subway system. My mother's father had been in the mines, and was bald as an egg from an explosion. He never went back after that.

So in my father's worldview, going into welding is a huge step in the wrong direction, inching closer to that underground world of eternal darkness.

I also called my friend Son of Gaetano from college, who lives in Reading, Pennsylvania. We are friends from college. He lives with a woman whom he refers to as his partner in solidarity with folks like me who are not able to marry. I'm pretty sure that's one of her things. This week, it's out to the Pines, but I think that next week I'll head to Reading and spend some time with the old gang. His partner and I talked while Son of Gaetano was getting off the other line. I told her about welding, and she told me that her daughter (former marriage) was dating a guy who right out of high school got a job at a battery factory making $22 an hour. And that's unskilled industrial. She lives right across the street from the Godiva Chocolate Factory (and you thought that was in France, dincha? nope, they were bought out by Hershey's and are made in Reading, Pennsylvania), and every day sees folks coming out of the factory who are getting paid and making their car payments. She and Son of Gaetano are both in the human services field, and work is hard to find. Son of Gaetano is currently a methadone counselor on a part time basis.

Y'know, I've long thought that something went wrong during the 1960s. Before that time, a minority of any high school graduating class went on to college. Most colleges offered History, English, Biology, Chemistry, and one or two other majors. Most people got good old fashioned jobs when they were graduated from high school: auto mechanics, haberdashers, cooks, truck drivers. But during the Viet Nam war, everybody wanted to go to college to avoid selective service. College majors ballooned, and suddenly, everyone wanted a career, rather than a job. Working as an auto mechanic or a haberdasher or a cook or a truck driver became somehow less than honorable. Of course, at the same time, the United States transitioned from an industrial economy to a service economy. I'm not an economist, so I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg in that equation.

I resisted going to college, and actually thought about all these issues a lot during my junior and senior year of high school. (No really, I did. I swear!) I didn't see why I needed to go to college. I hated high school. Just hated it. Why would I want to spend four more years sitting in a classroom? As it turns out, I had a good time in college that I didn't have in high school. And I got to read poetry and James Joyce and Sartre and Wittgenstein and Hans Kung.

But when I was graduated with a degree in English, I certainly didn't feel any more prepared for the job market than I had when I was graduated from high school.

My best friend from high school, who also hated high school, started working for a contractor. Best friend would talk about how they were building a house with out nails, with the enormous trunk of a tree as the central beam of the roof. As far as I know, he's still doing that. And probably owns a house and is solidly middle class.

Somehow, we been robbed. A college diploma was marketed to us as the American Dream. But it's not. It was just a marketing ploy. The American Dream--a good job that pays the bills, benefits, retirement... the thing that Bruce Springsteen always sang about--was replaced by this illusion of a piece of paper from an accredited four year college being the ticket to Success.

Anyway, next week I'll spend time in Bucks County with my parents, and do a full court press on welding school. Hopefully, there will be a raft of want ads for welders in the local papers that will bolster my argument. I wonder if I can find those local papers on the web and see if that's so?

Help me pay for school, Dad, and then I can get a job as a welder somewhere here in Bucks County, and then I can move back.

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