The Job Jar. It was a coffee can with a hole in the lid. Every Friday we put our hands in and picked four tasks.
Before that we had to mow the lawn. It took five hours on a riding Toro that I learned to drive at age eight. My little sister and I switched between the two-hour and three-hour segment weekly. That was hard work.
Then the job jar had folding diapers, dusting, vacuuming and three other tasks plus “Ask Mom” and Ask Dad” Ask Mom was the worst for me because it meant three hours of weeding.
When one of us got both “asks” it was easy. Do whatever Mom wants, go out to see Dad covered in sweat and dirt and he’ll ask you to hand him a screwdriver and say you’re done for the day if you’ve done everything else.
In two weeks my mother will have been gone for five years. I dream about her nearly every night but she never liked me starting when she became pregnant. I miss her and what kind of relationship we might have had as well. My father was never there but when he was, he was there in the evenings when the entire neighborhood came to call on him to play softball or touch football. Yes, everyone, including young girls, got to play, as those were his rules.
My hard work was at a summer institution pulling weeds on a clay tennis court and laying down tapes. Too bad the “boss” didn’t know what he was doing and never lifted a finger. He thought his job was to work the roller. Wrongo, boss man.
My hard work was trying to get a good bill to pass that would have perhaps nixed what the NSA is doing to us everyday. I even registered the bill’s name as 1984. Then it dealt with cable TV but now it would deal with everything else, like with the internet, oh, wait, who invented that.
Another bill I wrote dealt with sexual orientation. It’s only taken three decades for gay marriage to be legal in NYC.
I tried to get dogs off-leash with responsible owners for about six years, as a volunteer. It mostly didn’t work but did in some parks. Hard work.
There’s nothing wrong with hard work, especially if it goes with passion toward a cause, hopefully a paycheck and not a pat on the back. Most have been not seen and an occasional pat on the back. It’s ok, I’m used to being behind the curtain.
That’s what hard work is about, and keep up your math and science skills. Dee
Cooking with Dee 