Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
I am grateful for others who have observed the human condition and commented with such insight as to serve as ‘sophisticated insight by proxy’ for those of us less skilled and/or talented. to wit:
‘The only constant is change’ and ‘Youth is wasted on the young’. (See below)
(Before I get too far afield, This is the Ten Things of Thankful bloghop. It is hosted by Kristi. It encourages participants to link their posts that describe, list or otherwise elucidate those people, places, things and occurrences in their (respective) lives that make them feel grateful (or believe that their state of mind is that which is commonly referred to as ‘gratitude’).
For me, for this week’s post, I will say I’m grateful for:
1) Phyllis
2) Una
3) ‘The only constant is change.’ Heraclitus of Ephesus (537 BC – 475 BC) Well, no kidding! Back then, how many things were there in the world to begin with?! I mean, hard not to change when your world consists of: a mate, as many children as calenderistically possible, a culture grounded in weather and natural disaster and the need to wake up the next day in order to a) fight to the death for strangers or 2) build monuments to people you will never ever be in the same room with… yeah, not surprising that Heraclitus was into change. Totally a fan of this guy. Imagine not only getting credit for the ‘change quote’ but also (and my personal favorite) ‘You can’t step in the same river twice.’ Dude!
4) ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) Note: I misattributed this wonderful expression of ‘the view from far up ahead’ last week in a comment over at ‘Thankful Me’. I said it was Oscar Wilde. Seems like the kind of thing he might have said. I should have spent more research time before committing to electrons-on-phosphor. Ah well, live and learn. Not that George was any kind of slacker, his-ownself. This guy also came up with: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” Ayiiee! (and Item 7 will be something about ‘Almira’. Maybe I do have the ego to see this thing through! lol)
5) The whole house generator that just started its weekly exercise cycle. Which is, in and of itself, pretty cool. I mean, of the things in life that we study, exercise or otherwise expend time or money in order to acquire, most are pretty non-noticeable. Either the new thing is immediately incorporated into daily life (adding and subtracting, driving a stick shift, reading and digging a hole with a shovel) and therefore no longer special or it sits in the back of the closet in our heads (bread makers, ice skates and an enthusiasm for swimming) and fades into semi-nonexistence. Not so our whole house generator. Every Sunday morning, at 8:00 am (Eastern Standard Time) it roars into life and I feel good about our investment. Hey, that totally sounds like some kind of lesson of life or something. Anyone? I know, I’ll leave Item Six blank.
6) Anyone care to express ‘The Lesson of the Whole House Generator’ heres your opportunity.
“…if you test something regularly that is meant to help you out in an emergency, you won’t be unpleasantly surprised when said emergency comes and the something doesn’t work.”
Thank you, Mimi!
7) ‘Almira’. Work continues. Near the end of the first ‘excessive passive voice scrubbing’. Not that there’s anything wrong with passive voice. But, after this is done, I believe I need to write each chapter over again as if it were a Six Sentence Story. I was talking to Phyllis about the job of braider tender, which is the job Almira Ristani has when we first meet her. She works in a textile mill. In any event, I mentioned it to Phyllis because my writing was based on experience. I had a job as a braider tender, back, way back in the day. Hey! Know how I put an excerpt into my TToT last week? It really helped me see it differently. Lets continue the soon-to-be-a-feature of my TToT, ‘the Almira Excerpt of the Week’. in Item 9
8) THIS SPACE AVAILABLE
9) something, something is being preempted so that we can bring you this excerpt:
The noon whistle cut through the roar of the braiding machines that filled the 3rd floor of Building 6 of Everett Mill. There were 2 Braider Tenders for each row of machines. All the braider tenders were women. Smaller hands and greater manual dexterity being more necessary than upper body strength. Reaching in among the spinning and whirling machine parts, belts and pulleys, they replaced empty spools and tied broken threads. Only the Floor Supervisor had the ability, (and the authority), to slow down or stop the machinery. Almira and the other women moved up and down their rows as connected to the machinery as the bobbins and carriers.
The evenings of her first three weeks working at the mill, Almira’s hands and fingers were knots of fear-stressed muscle and tendons. Being trained to tend the braiding machines required, well, it required tending the braiding machines.
Almira’s first steps down the narrow space between rows of braiders were within a millimeter of dead-center, as she followed Mrs. Ypres, who trained all new Braider Tenders. Almira watched as the woman took a full bobbin from a cart, and standing in front of a braiding machine still running at full speed, tied it to an early depleted spool, cut and pulled it to throw in the cart with the other empty cylinders. She made it look simple. What she could not make it look was safe. Speaking directly into the older woman’s ear, Almira asked her if it wouldn’t be easier and safer to turn the machine off first. Without ever taking her eyes off the machinery, Mrs. Ypres shook her head and said, ‘No’.
10) Secret Rule 1.3 (“…completing Item 9 is something to be thankful for, therefore can totally serve as Number 10!” (ibid. op. cit. of course))
vid
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