I remember the census worker talking with my mother. The census worker read income categories for upper, middle and lower classes. My mother was asked which category our family was in.
My mother asked, “do you have a working class?”
I was surprised by my mother’s response, refusing to be categorized by income and instead asking to be categorized as a member of the working class. I admire the working class; I identify with them.
I still feel compelled, nine years into retirement, to go to work every day. I still feel the need to do meaningful work. I know others feel there is something wrong with me, and maybe there is.
I would admit that I never learned to play like other retirees have. Instead, I like to do the things I used to do when I was working, before I got paid for it, and after I became a professional.
The farm tasks required skills that I still try to maintain. I have a welder I bought when I could first afford one when I worked for North Central Planning Council in Devils Lake. I learned to weld in shop class at Fessenden High School. I built a log splitter 45 years ago with that welder and both still work. I am not a professional welder, but I admire people who can weld.
I have a 1949 International pickup that I have owned for 43 years. With the help of skilled mechanics and body shop professionals, that truck can haul and dump, with its hoist, 2,000 pounds of top soil. I am not a body shop expert or a mechanic, but I admire those who are.
I even admire cars and trucks by the work they can do. Others may judge cars and trucks by their looks, their color, or by their conveniences. I have tried to teach my kids to look for vehicles that will work in bad weather, cling to the road as if your life depended on it, and start at 30 degrees below zero without being plugged in.
I admire the linemen from Capital Electric who found the ground fault inside our dike and fixed it to keep the sump pumps running in the flood of 2011. I respect skills of the people building the rail bridge over the Missouri River. The engineers who designed it, the people pouring the concrete and driving the steel, the people managing the accounting and procurement, managing vehicles. They are workers.
I respect the crew that dug 130 feet of water line to my house. Their skill with a backhoe and ability to hand dig an 8-foot hole under the basement, made me want to cheer for them.
I respect the guys working on my 446 Case Garden tractor to find the short that is blowing the 30-amp fuse. That tractor can do a lot of work. Those mechanics honored the work that tractor can do and didn’t make fun of me.
I respect and relate to the workers on North Dakota dairy farms who milk and care for a thousand cows in one barn. And for the workers that haul the milk and the workers who pasteurize, homogenize, and package it for sale.
I respect all honest workers and the honest employers who pay fair wages for work well done.
Now some wealthy people running government think they can withhold the right to work for people whose skin color they don’t like. Those idle rich have never milked a cow or welded a bead. It is time to let the workers work.
Bill Patrie is a retired planner and economic developer having worked in regional and statewide positions. He is the author of “Creating Co-op Fever” printed by USDA as a service bulletin, and “100 Stories of Hope” a book about his interviews with 100 people in poverty.
