I worked for years in the streets of my community.I worked for a water district fixing and installing water mains and services to homes and businesses. Most of my life I guess you could say I have been a ditchdigger. That's how I earned a living. I dug ditches and stuck things in them.
I was young it was not so bad.I was strong enough, used to it too as I had worked on gangs in England with Irish immigrants or imported Irish Labor. The Irish have songs about building up and tearing England down like this verse from a song of the same
In the tunnel underground
A young Limmerick man was found
He was built into the New Victoria Line
When the bonus gang had past
Sticking from the concrete cast
Was the face of little Charlie Joe Devine
A ganger named McGirck
Made Paddy hate the work
When a gas-main burst he flew off the ground
Oh they swore he said gone slack
I won't be there until I'm back
Keep on building up and tearing England down
As I sped along the streets I came upon patches beneath which were holes that I had dug, along with others of course.Heading up Fruitvale I came upon this patch that had real memories.We worked 24 hours on that job. It seemed at first like a simple job when we got there; a hydrant leak. The hydrant run, the distance from where the pipe connects to the main from the hydrant body itself, was quite short although that can be a problem.
Anyway, it turned out to be a real humdinger. Partially because the hydrant run had major electrical and phone cables running beneath it but mostly due to Paul cutting through them with the Jackhammer.
But not go on too long. I saw many now filled holes that I had spent some time in and never can pass them without this feeling I have, a real connection, a bond. But I never really could explain it concretely until I came across old Karl Marx, after all, we feel that way about something we've written or a teacher feels it about the pupil whose talent she has spent so much time developing.
We feel this way because our Labor time is in it. It is past, dead Labor, in this case, mine. The hole and the objects in it contain my life activity over a period of time. Just like when we erect a house or write a paper or heal a patient or teach a child to write; the end product contains our Labor, our life activity acted upon nature over a period of time; our sinews, muscles, mental power---it’s all in there.
This is also why work on assembly lines can be so difficult, we often never see the product of our Labor. Our pace of activity is controlled by a conveyor belt. It is why in a capitalist economy we will always be anxious, alienated, unsatisfied; we don't control the Labor process and own the end result of it.
My day ended very well. I went by a crew from my former workplace. They were working on a mainbreak and they had to cut in about a five foot piece of 6' cast iron pipe. The piece they cut out was rotting and full of holes; it had been installed in 1929.
I talked with them a bit as I really miss the camaraderie of the workplace and noticed one of the guys in the ditch was a guy who never really said much to me when I was there. He came to work every day and never said anything about the Union or came to Union meetings; he was doing OK. Here he was now back in the ditch at 60. No matter what they say about the public sector and how easy it is (this is the bosses propaganda) being in the ditch at 60 hurts. There never has been provision, and there isn't in all the trades I don't would recognize officially that work should get easier when we get older. Hell, they're increasing the retirement age---what do they care; capitalism is not a friendly system. The only time that happened at my workplace was when the Union won it at contract time in 1982. What class-conscious worker does that, sticks a 60 year old worker in a hole? You have to have a manager’s mind for that sort of thing.
I got up and grabbed the bike for the 12 mile ride home. As I said goodbye to the crew, this guy grabbed my hand and shook it.
"Thanks for everything you did all those years in the Union" he says. I was a bit taken aback, not quite sure what to say.
"Not a problem."was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
"I didn't appreciate it then" he said, still grasping my hand. "But I sure do now."
I could see by the expression on his face that he meant it.
You can't wish for better than that.
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