Men used to expose themselves to all sorts of dangers and privations just to make a living. Take these loggers out west, back around the turn of the twentieth century.
They’re kept safe now, of course, by an intricate web of laws and government programs, in order to allow them to die of drug overdoses purchased with dole money at their girlfriend’s apartment in the projects, after shaking her baby a bit for caterwauling. It’s progress, surely. I mean, they have premium cable and everything. Ooh boy! America’s Deadliest Ice Road Hardcore Unsolved Trucker Survivors is on!
BTW, every woman in America would crawl over the freshly killed husk of their husband or boyfriend to get a crack at the firewood splitting dude that makes his appearance at 13:20.
6 Responses
You're singing my tune, Sipp. My dad and granddad logged in the NW in this era, and I was lucky to get into the woods with all of them as a boy. My father begged me not to go into logging, and I mean that sincerely.
All I have on the Earth I owe to these men. Period. I often pray to be a tenth of the man my granddad was, and that would be a huge jump up.
Just like Casey, and I imagine a lot of men older than fifty, I inherited my work ethic from my dad. But back then it was no big deal: giving an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; doing the best quality you can, prompt, clean, courteous, all the values we seem to hold up on a gilded pedestal nowadays, why, that was the way you're supposed to do it. Every time, not on special occasions and certainly not for a premium price. The apprentices back when I started my trade, they did better quality work than most journeymen do today. Doing the job right and doing it on time were as natural as breathing.
I heat with wood, and split all the firewood with axe or maul.
But I must be doing something awfully wrong, somehow, 'cause I don't look much like that feller at the 13 minute mark.
After posting a link to this on Twitter, I was apprised of Clint Walker's bona fides.
A bit too pretty for my tastes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlt7IT7IPS0
Although modern logging technology has vastly improved in the intervening years line skidding operations still perform in a similar manner.
My dad and grandpa were both loggers, my grandpa until his death at 87. A local man where I live suffered a stroke at age 86 falling a tree. Tough as nails logger are!