A Working-Class Hero
Dressed in grey work clothes He laced his tall leather boots Each morning while I watched. A battered van stored all his tools. He grew the sweetest tomatoes Shared with all the neighborhood. Showed me how to water petunias Without digging up the roots. Before the sun rose on a winter's day He shoveled coal into the burner for heat In summer after a full day's work He'd mow the lawn 'til all was neat. He taught me how to write my name And read the funnies aloud He drove me out to see dinosaurs Being jack-hammered from the ground. He told me how boys liked me Though their teasing made me cry. Then he told me stories of his youth How he fell in love with Mom and why. Every Saturday he would carry home A wicker creel filled with trout Once he even took me along A whiny kid who'd sit and pout. Every autumn we hunted pheasants It was an endless trudge for me. He showed me how to shoot the gun Then locked it away and hid the key. Called himself a "broken-down 'lectrician" Yet could point to every house he'd wired He brought glowing lights to half the town Through it all he rarely tired.
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It’s easy to overlook all the tradesmen who make our lives so comfortable. We need more Mike Rowes to celebrate honest people who do honest work.
This tribute brought nostalgic tears to my eyes, Sue. Not because I had a dad like yours, but because I didn't. He sounds like such a good man. And you obviously loved him a lot. I admire so much the man who has a trade, the man who works with his head and his hands. You painted him well.
He was the same working class generation as my mom, and I had to laugh at these two lines, "He told me how boys liked me / Though their teasing made me cry." Here is why: sharronbassano.substack.com/p/yes-i-ate-the-paste