Working for Change

Studs Terkel's Working was my introduction to the philosophy and poetry of labor. My love of oral history was born around Grandma Halma's dining table in Pierce, Nebraska. I wish I'd had a tape reel in the Craig 212 recording more of those family stories. Studs Terkel did record his conversations with ordinary people about life's labors. At NPR.org you can listen to actual cassette recordings of some Terkel interviews for the book.

Studs died in Chicago this week at the age of ninety-six. Danger Baby now lives in Chicago, that brash city of Terkel and Carl Sandburg. I may have to get him a copy of Working for Christmas.

Terkel's book made me realize the meaning of my life would be largely defined by my philosophical relationship with my work. That realization came in the 1975 "Work Project" in Centennial College. UNL's Centennial College was a living-learning community for self-motivated students to choose and design their own individual and group study projects.

Much that I allegedly learned in regular college classes is long lost from my brain. Not so these quotes from Working:

"Jobs are not big enough for people."

"Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit."

Having work that uses our abilities is a blessing. Having a job that respects our efforts is a gift. These words from the Chicago Tribune, 11/1/08:

...Working, a book that welded him [Terkel] to the lives of common people by telling their stories. Even though it was not his first book, it defined his style, his compassion and his talent, all at the same time. No one ever used a tape recorder and a few questions to better effect.

America's next administration must make its educated citizen workforce a priority. The needed "Change" rocking this election campaign should focus on a new frugalitly while realigning employee compensation to ensure that ordinary citizens can provide for the nutrition, health care, and education of their children. Adam Cohen said it far better than I could in his New York Times op-ed on the thirtieth anniversary (5/31/04) of Terkel's Working. His piece ends:

When America begins to pay attention to its unhappy work force — and eventually, it must — "Working" will still provide important insights, with its path-breaking exploration of what Mr. Terkel described as "the extraordinary dreams of ordinary people."

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Playaways

Like Howard Cosell, I never Playawayed the game. Playaways are the new game at your library and bookstore, a cross between a book-on-tape and one of those classic game keychain from Basic Fun that you just couldn't resist at Target a few years back.


My Get Smart lunchbox keychain is missing its Thermos bottle lid and the plastic apple, but it still makes me laugh. Spies were all the rage in my Sixties childhood. Back then we expected our intelligence gathering agencies to actually gather intelligence while talking on their shoe phones and shooting bad guys with fake plastic finger and belt buckle guns.


My extended family had Craig 212 tape recorders so we could mail tapes to each other and avoid those expensive long-distance phone calls. If we were lucky those recordings would self-destruct in thirty seconds with a pulsing music soundtrack.

Back in my Sixties childhood, my mom nagged us to take the Kleenex out of our pockets before we threw our dirty clothes down the laundry chute. Nagging is so totally out of style this millennium! Who could possibly remember all by themselves to remove the Playaway from their pocket before it spins, tumbles, and self-destructs? Is this the future of the book? I'm worried.

World Fruit Cocktail Cup

(Cue the Museum Impossible theme song.)

If you know your docent from your dachsund, Get Fuzzy has been particularly entertaining this month. First we had the joy of Bucky Katt's birthplace museum (beginning 5/29/06).

Bucky traded Rob's iPod for a Craig 212 tape recorder to provide the audio tours of his museum. The Craig 212 is the kind we owned in the Jetson/Flintstone Era. More recently, Rob and Bucky have been contestants on Satchel's game show, disputing the existence of England.




Somewhere on this comic timeline I got a major craving for toasted English muffins with warm creamy peanut butter. As college students thirty years ago we used to eat this gourmet delight at any hour of the day or night. Just the toasty kitchen aroma can clear your mind after a keg social, and the protein will get you back on the scholarly track, thanks to George Washington Carver.

A clear head is good for keeping up with the yellow cards in the group round of the World Cup. I'm not sure which of these match-ups are real, but I hope they all have colorful face paint and warning labels on yellow recipe cards:

English Muffins v. Swiss Steak
Hungarian Goulash v. Chop Suey
Freedom Fries v. Power Tools

Don't forget that FIFA stands for Feline International Food Arrogance, or les attempts futile vs. egomaniacal feline irritation. (Don't quote me. No matter how many years of foreign language you suffer through, you will never speak conversational cat.)