Labor.
That is what we do. We work.
The image on top is from La Valencia Hotel on Prospect in La Jolla. It was built in 1926 and MRs. KP and I had lunch there Monday.
My daughter’s boyfriend was, you got it, working there behind the bar and serving others on Labor Day.
The image below is of the lifeguard tower where I worked my first dream job. Toes in the feathers.
Before that I cut lawns as an eight year old.
The hardest work I ever did was when I picked lemons with men from Mexico. We got paid by how many bags we picked. I still have scars on my forearms from the lemon tree thorns.
Then I made deli sandwiches just up the street from the that lifeguard tower in Carpinteria, a beach town ten thousand people. A slice of heaven. The owner of the Deli was racist who said some unkind things about my sister when she drove by in 1971 in a yellow drop top sports car with her black husband. That job was cut short that night and I stold a case of Budweiser “The King” on the way out. I’ve never had any remorse about that case of beer. YUMMY.
I went back to landscaping.
Then I rode the back of a garbage truck.
We actually rode hanging off the back. No hard hats. Just red and blue bandanas before they meant Crips or Bloods. We’d jump off the truck hoisted the metal cans in the streets of Santa Barbara and kept the city clean. We were smelly had and a lot of pride in the work we did.
Hard work works. Good times.
Maybe I’ll cover the following thirty six years of labor next September.
Here’s a tip of my cap to all jobs well done.
Dr. Kevin Purcell, DC. Dedicated to serving others …