A quote: “Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.” ~~ Calvin Coolidge
I’ll start with a story …
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The lights are low. Shadows hide workbenches but I can see in my mind each tool, each project as I have for the years I grew up in this shop.
Five generations, from a one room shop to a thriving business in a large industrial building we worked and sacrificed and grew.
When did it go sideways? When I’d come to work to see strangers walking the floors and smirking at me when I told them to get out? The protest demands I turn my business over to the employees?
I take one last look before I light the flame.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
GWB says: The schools had done it to themselves. Between the plagues and the union demands, the public centers for ‘education’ had emptied themselves.
Jim now understood the problem with the public bureaucracies, though. How they just grew with each “great new idea.” They’d only been part of the neighborhood homeschool project for two years now. But his workshop contents had grown bit by bit over those two years. A new bench here. A drill press there. A fancy lathe in that corner.
But the kids were definitely learning. And gaining real skills. And learning to teach others. The future was promising.
Brian Brandt says: A thousandth of an inch here, a thousandth of an inch there. Little things can make a big difference.
“That table you made for the kitchen wobbles, John.”
“It’s not Buckingham Palace, Dear.”
“I really wish you’d fix it. It’s driving me crazy.”
“O.K., as soon as I mill this block of aluminum into an AR-15 lower receiver. First things first. It’s not a palace, but it’s our castle.
Cameron says: Dad looked around the workshop and shook his head. “Not really where I thought you’d end up.”
I sighed. “We’ve gone down this path. More than once.”
“I’m worried. That’s all.”
I sat the plane down on the table and looked at him. “I tried it your way and ended up with insomnia, no life and a high alcohol tolerance.” I gestured around the room. “Here, I make things for people and when I leave work for the day, I left it. I’ll take my freedom and be happy.”
He smiled. “Then I’ll be happy for you. Do you make cabinets?”
Brian Brandt says: There’s a lot of wisdom in this short essay.
Cameron says: I decided to try a different route and it turned out OK. -:-)
cold pizza says: “People today just don’t take pride in craftsmanship,” the old man told me as he drew a three-square file across the teeth on the saw, smoothing away the burrs. “They think a job is just a job.”
The warm scent of sawdust lingered in the air as the blade chewed through an oak board with ease.
“You, for example,” he said as he adjusted his ear protection and goggles. “You had no pride. No ‘craftsmanship’ in your profession. Imagine, breaking into MY shop!”
I tried fruitlessly to squirm away from the table to which I’d been clamped.
The saw screamed.
Cameron says: OK, that was hilarious. Well done!
GWB says: OH! o.O
Darleen Click says: Heh. Me like. 🙂
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