[cafard]

My grandfather thought that his sons, college-bound as they were, should experience manual labor. For my father, it was a county road crew one summer, for his younger brother a stint or two as a railroad track worker. Sometime after their days with shovels, they sat down and reviewed the old man's chronology. He had never done paid manual labor, had gone right from a commercial high school to an office. He admitted this, saying that he thought that it would be good for them.

But a) these were his sons, big strapping guys of seventeen or so, and b) they were not in especially hazardous conditions. The people who think it is well for other people's adolescents to do dangerous work, I don't understand.

[green_man_lives]

Funny, my grandfather worked in agriculture since he was 5 by his own account. He is the hardest working man I know, but I never heard him say anything about the value of a hard day's work. Instead he told me how important an education was and how I should always work smarter and not harder.