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Middle Class Reunion Announcement
Hey Folks,
It's that time again. It's time for our middle class reunion. It's hard to believe it been 10 years.
As exciting as it is to look forward to the reunion, this time it will be bittersweet.
We are having a difficult time finding many of our middleclassmates. Please look at the list before and get in touch with the committee if you know where any of them are.
Missing Middleclassmates:
Autoworkers
Union Workers
Machinists
Tool and Die Makers
Engineers
Lumberjacks
Computer Engineers
Computer Scientists
Computer Programmers
Help Desk Workers
Telephone Operators
Architects
Chemists
Accountants
Consultants
Rubbermaid Workers
Tire Plant Workers
IT Workers
Printers
We are sorry to report that we have heard of the deaths of some of our middleclassmates. Let us know if we have been misinformed.
Deaths:
Textile Workers
Shoe Makers
Shoe Repairmen
Television Repairmen
Furniture Plant Workers
Woodcarvers
Stained Glass Workers
Potters
Toymakers
Please inform us of any other deaths you know about.
There is a silver lining to all this. We will be able to save lots of money on postage and we will be able to rent a much smaller [and cheaper] facility for the reunion this year than we did 10 years ago.
Look forward to seeing the few of you who are left,
The Middleclass Reunion Committee
PS
If you want to purchase our fundraiser item, email us.
This year it is a timely bumper sticker, tastefully done in black and blue
"CLASS WAR, ENLIST NOW!"
It's that time again. It's time for our middle class reunion. It's hard to believe it been 10 years.
As exciting as it is to look forward to the reunion, this time it will be bittersweet.
We are having a difficult time finding many of our middleclassmates. Please look at the list before and get in touch with the committee if you know where any of them are.
Missing Middleclassmates:
Autoworkers
Union Workers
Machinists
Tool and Die Makers
Engineers
Lumberjacks
Computer Engineers
Computer Scientists
Computer Programmers
Help Desk Workers
Telephone Operators
Architects
Chemists
Accountants
Consultants
Rubbermaid Workers
Tire Plant Workers
IT Workers
Printers
We are sorry to report that we have heard of the deaths of some of our middleclassmates. Let us know if we have been misinformed.
Deaths:
Textile Workers
Shoe Makers
Shoe Repairmen
Television Repairmen
Furniture Plant Workers
Woodcarvers
Stained Glass Workers
Potters
Toymakers
Please inform us of any other deaths you know about.
There is a silver lining to all this. We will be able to save lots of money on postage and we will be able to rent a much smaller [and cheaper] facility for the reunion this year than we did 10 years ago.
Look forward to seeing the few of you who are left,
The Middleclass Reunion Committee
PS
If you want to purchase our fundraiser item, email us.
This year it is a timely bumper sticker, tastefully done in black and blue
"CLASS WAR, ENLIST NOW!"
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Super Duper Blog! Highly recommended.
Sounds like the reunion will be more like a wake.
January 28, 2009 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. We'll make it a proper Irish wake!
'Sláinte!'
January 28, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Salud! (that's Spanish!)
January 28, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
For every 100 employees receiving a barely livable wage, our great MBA leaders will lose important funds that could be used for great boats and fine silks--to say nothing about renting call girls.
Did you see that the old head of Merrill Lynch ended up paying back 1.2 mill on his office redo and received no bonus for 2008 when he had initially asked for 30 million? Of course he did hand out 4 billion in bonuses and I do not believe the janitors received anything out of that.
But we need a little more than social pressure on a few CEOs--which we need anyway.
January 28, 2009 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"For every 100 employees receiving a barely livable wage, our great MBA leaders will lose important funds that could be used for great boats and fine silks--to say nothing about renting call girls."
As if our economy isn't in enough trouble, what will be the impact of a decline of whores renting call girls? [I don't want to insult call girls by putting them in the same category as the MBA whores]
January 28, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I want me one of them there bumper stickers.
All the dead and MIA listed like that...very sobering.
Excellent entry, bali........may I call you bali for short?
January 28, 2009 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course you may.
bali is the familiar form for the more formal thebalilama.
The Dalai Lama and I share the same birthday [along with {dare I write it} G W Bush, Nancy Reagan and Sylvester Stallone]
I think my hero the Dalai Lama trumps the other 7/6ers.
I have spent much much time in Bali, therefore: thebalilama.
Barack and I share a language besides English.
terima kasih banyak, anak bunga
[many thanks flowerchild]
January 28, 2009 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting! I share a birthday with Mozart (January 27th), and also Mikhail Baryshnikov and I were born on the same day AND year. But because of the turning of the earth, I am confidant that he is at least a few hours older than I am!
January 28, 2009 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. Highly recommended.
A thought I will get down quickly and try to return to later.
A beautiful little piece called Shop Class as Soulcraft appeared some time ago in The New Atlantis. I thought of it first when I read this post.
When I was in school, centuries ago, your missing classmates plied what were known and respected as "skilled trades." I wonder if they still are.
I think our concepts of wealth and value are all screwed up. Maybe the time is coming when they can be put right.
January 28, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read the article you recommended. Wonderful!
It resonated with me in ways that it might not for many.
I started high school in the early 60s in Oklahoma where the school had a very good shop program. About 80% of that school's graduates went to and finished college. The shop grads could get a good job right out of high school in several of the trades.
I finished high school in a Chicago suburb. That school had no shop program at all. That school claimed that 93% of grads went to college. About 80% of grads finished college when all was said and done. So that school let down about 20% of their students.
In Oklahoma I was in love with science and my advisors had me going to MIT and becoming a nuclear physicist. Sounded good to me.
In Chicago I met some professional artists who saw some doodles of mine and asked me if I wanted to share some studio space with them. Sounded good to me. I took the road less traveled by.
I have been making my living solely as a professional artist since 1971. The sublime pleasure of holding something in my hands that I made from conception through completion is beyond my capacities to describe.
I run into old clientele who still have and use or wear work they bought from me 30 or 40 years ago and I realize that in my small way I have added something to the human experience that I can be proud of.
I'm not sure that I would have had the same experience working as that nuclear physicist. It would be difficult to experience something from conception through execution in that kind of work. [that may be why the best hobby shop I have ever seen was in Los Alamos NM]
I think it is important for people to have some area of self expression where they can experience that joy of authorship.
Now science is a hobby of mine. I get to have it all.
January 28, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I admire craftsmen (I know it's not gender neutral, but it sounds better) of all kinds. Though my skills are limited, I love to work with my hands. In a way, I suppose, I do. Being a keyboard jockey pays the bills, but it ain't the same.
Though I went to a college prep high school, many of my friends ended up in the trades. Plumbers, brickmasons, cabinetmakers pressmen. I wanted to be a mechanic. I love cars, always have. I worked in garages through high school and during college summers. I still remember the smells, the mechanics with their immense tool chests and the way they leaned into an engine compartment, cigarettes dangling from their mouths, squinting, tempting fate. I dropped out of school for a while and seriously, very seriously, considered getting certified and making a career of it. There's something to turning a wrench I found very fulfilling and incredibly peaceful.
True: it is sublime.
Thanks again for your blog. The metaphor was perfect. Who knows. We may see a time when those classmates return
January 28, 2009 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
dali, chi migwetch. (Thank you very much, dali.) in Anishinaabemowin, a Native American language I share with several thousand Anishinaabek, but not Barack. :o)
I have followed the life of the Dalai Lama and am a great admirer of his way. I cannot say I emulate him to closely, but, I do admire him. Aho.
January 28, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is a part of many of us.
January 28, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Darn it. I meant bali, not dali.
January 28, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good blog, though the death of some on your first list is a bit premature. If that list was completely accurate, we would be in even bigger trouble than we already are.
January 28, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, it's only a reunion if you left and came back!
Most of us live here!
January 28, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, here's one that can be added to the MIA list: Iron Workers.
Just heard it on the news tonight. The new $350 million plant GM was to build for the Chevy Volt is being scrapped. The steel for the plant has been waiting on flat bed trucks all winter. Now, it's just gonna sit there some more.
Instead, GM says they will refurbish an existing nearby empty plant at a 50% savings. So, duh, why didn't they reuse the existing plant in the first place? Dunno. But, maybe that's one reason they're in such financial trouble.
What they did was get a lot of folks, like iron workers, revved up to go to work. That work is gone now. There will be some construction jobs with the refurbish and refit, but nothing like the 3-4 hundred anticipated for the new build.
And so it goes....
January 28, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey wait minute I saw shoe repairman a few weeks ago. He re-soled my 25 year old boots. He seems to be doing good business but his shop looks exactly the same as it did the last time I was there 10 years ago.
January 28, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we have massive unionization of industry as promised by the present administration, you'll be placing the biggest part of your top list down there with the dead ones.
"Oh ye of little brains"
January 28, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's it like living in denial on a trust fund?
January 28, 2009 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's it like living on the taxpayer's weal?
January 28, 2009 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
tsk, tsk, you are so naughty.
January 28, 2009 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truly inspired! Thank you for the post. You might consider adding "college classroom teachers" to the list, given the way they are being replaced by canned online courses.
January 29, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink