America Lost Its Macho
I’m part to blame. I don’t cowboy anymore. I turned in the shovel for a tape gun. Used to be I was an honest-to-god ditch digger. Now it’s just a weekend thing, like an old guy shootin’ hoops with some pals, I head down to Woodside with a square point shovel in the back of the truck, trying to capture a memory, a fleeting glimpse of the strength I had at 22.
I could trench twenty feet for 3 inch pipe, back fill with sand and get the topsoil back on in a day. Now I stick with the easy lay-ups of transplanting a rosemary bush.
These photo shoots aren’t the right place for macho. It breaks my heart I can’t prove myself the old fashioned way, with brute strength and a yelling match.
I do get to drive a big truck, but that’s a bone they threw me. It’s a Japanese import. Loaded with candles and cookware. I remember the days I used to haul sacks of cement, loads of horse shit, $3,000 bucks worth of redwood heart lumber.
I used to start the day carving a hole in the earth with my hands and a crude steel blade. It wasn’t building sandcastles at the beach; I would take a miner’s pick and hack out roots, rocks and old cement posts. Is this cement we’re digging or sun baked clay in the dry dead heat of summer? Same difference, pal. Just keep moving.
Or how about digging mud? The mud sticks to the metal, half your energy is spent shaking the stuff off so you can take another bite, when you do the blade gets sucked in. Wrestle it out of the ground – like pulling a dead body from the water. Think about the time you walked in the woods and your boot stuck in the mud and your foot stepped clean out of it. Remember the suction as you teetered on one foot and tried to yank that boot free? That’s digging mud.
I used to work. I felt like a killer. I used a six foot steel bar for breaking up slab foundations, a Sawz-All to smooth the edges of the trench where roots would snag up the pipe…I had an arsenal and my body loved me for it.
Now I come to work and socialize over yogurt and granola, drink a coffee and some juice. I’m changing, just like America. We’re losing our macho together. A service economy demands interpersonal communication skills of gold. No more throwing a clunk of dirt at my boss. No more pissing by my truck. I’m giving up a lot, and it’s scary, but I’m trying to keep up with the world.
Now I understand why Russ would say, “You can’t dig a ditch worth shit, man. Now Jon, there was a ditch digger. You remember, Locke?”
Locke would light up another Marlboro and say, “Yep. He was ditch digger alright. I’d say dig me a ditch two feet by six and I’d come back to a ditch big enough to bury a Buick in it.”
Russ would nod. “Why can’t you be like that?”
I would rest my arm on the pry bar and try to position the flap of skin that used to be my palm so that the nerves weren’t directly in contact with the metal bar.
“You think a Mexican can do better?”
Russ would nod. Locke would shrug.
“Well get a Mexican. Shit. I’ll pay for him. You think I was born to dig drainage ditches? A week from now we’re gonna come back here and fill this fucking thing in with granite. The lady is crazy. She just likes to see people work.”
“So get to work, then.” Said Russ.
Locke laughed and said, “This one time I was coming home from the Pioneer. I’d had a little too much to drink and…”
Somehow I would dig that fucking ditch. But I made a note to myself to thank you for setting the bar so high that I would be considered lazy because I didn’t break my back digging ditches.
Thanks. And you don’t have to work like a Mexican anymore. You passed the test. Put down the cross and act your age. You slung dirt with the best of them. Take a long look at Russ next time you see him. Is he still going to the Chiropractor. I know I am. That’s what digging ditches gets you. You think foundation trenches aren’t going to get dug without you? Think again. It’s time to spend your time in the pursuit of dreams, not your self-image. Don’t just keep up…be a leader.
Comment by oggy — May 9, 2007 @ 12:18 am
Rus can’t roll up the driver’s side window his left shoulder’s so fucked. Locke stands by the Ranger’s tailgate and lights a Chesterfield – they cost a third less than Marlboros. “I feel like dying,” he tells me.
Why does it feel so honest? Like they are the only real men I know?
Comment by jon — May 9, 2007 @ 7:44 am
Maybe it’s because you think real men are drones.
Comment by Lyle_s — May 9, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
Sort of. This is a complicated situation. Aren’t most men are drones? They become fathers and go to work. “Mouths to feed”.
It is noble. Sacrificing. A lot of compromises. My father told me a long time ago that he wanted to be a beachcomber but he had me and my sister so he put that dream away.
I never wanted to be a part of society at large, but now I’m working for a huge corporation. They create junk mail and generate tons of waste as they outsource to countries like Vietnam to have their products mass produced. It is by no means a sustainable practice.
I always felt like digging a fence post hole was holy work. It alters the environment, but it isn’t destroying it.
I’m compromising my beliefs as I transition to the corporate world of photo shoots. First, it isn’t macho. It has nothing to do with man interacting with nature. It is about creating artificial worlds that induce people to buy products they don’t need.
Second, I need to be a team player. I have to compromise. Corporations grow so huge because there are so many people working together. I don’t think being macho is about compromise.
I’m having trouble here, because I’m not sure what macho is anymore. But being a tough guy, macho, whatever, is important to me. I understand there needs to be some balance there, I don’t like to deal with total tough guys, you can’t talk to them. There’s no give and take. No compromise.
anyway, it’s an ongoing exploration, and I’m definitely trying to discover how much macho I don’t need.
Comment by jon — May 9, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Russ and Locke live off the grid. They are illegal contractors. Let’s be real. Time literally passed them by. There’s no question they are as macho as they come simply because the law will have to come and get them before they change their ways. Plain and simple.
Case in point: We were working on a shed in the middle of a field in Woodside. miles from anywhere. Pouring concrete. pissing on horse shit. Etc. And if that wasn’t enough, the truck, the old blue Toyota 4 cylinder, wouldn’t start or even turn over. Miles from anywhere. Let me tell you that when Russ and Locke walked back 100 yards to see what was wrong…time stood still. These two men ambling toward me across a big horse field. Taking their time. No hurry. Sun shining. Birds chirping. A horse under a tree way far away. A dead Toyota next to me. It was priceless. I thought, these are men. They are walking back to me with nothing but a pack of cigarettes and a bad shoulder and by god I KNOW they are going to get this Toyota to run. I was completely relaxed. And they did get it to run. It didn’t run well, in fact it was hot wired so it could not turn off, but it ran and got me off that hill. It was all in a day’s work, no more than paying a toll or getting off a bus.
They could no more survive a day in the corporate world than you or I could lecture about open heart surgery. They are holy men.
I have also wrestled with this debate. What is being a man? What is my responsibility to mankind? What legacy will I leave? What code will I honor? You let me know when you figure it out.
Comment by oggy — May 9, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
It’s funny where this point is going because I’ve often thought of starting a blog centered around this very topic, in a way. I don’t mean necessarily focusing on ‘being a man’ but on what’s the appropriate course for the human race at this point. You know, the kind of stuff that leaves a pit in your stomach after talking about it. I don’t think it’s something to be figured out on your own. Now, more than ever, the world needs people who can think beyond their own lifespan (or youth, for that matter) to help set the path (or dig the ditch) for humankind.
Comment by Lyle_s — May 10, 2007 @ 5:14 pm