Is $112,000,000 worth it?
I’m glad I’ve worked in fields worth the work, some I even enjoyed without the fat paycheck, although that gig I did my first year at college left a long memory of what to avoid if you find you’re worth more than dirty dishes. I hid for months from the eyes that mattered then, those nearly-twenty bodies made for 👖 jeans.
$112,000,000 is what they're paying for four years of grinding, bumping, and bruising the brain of the future you—would you do it?
"In a heartbeat!"
I said the same, and came near enough to do it before choosing other things. The friend I knew from school days is in a casket now—the end of a celebrated career for a Lamborghini and fine wine and fine lovlies, too. He was a legend in his time, and still is—there.
First, the memories left him dazed, staring back at faces for all the life of him unconnected to a name. It's a costly business, this thing for a living.
I stood there yesterday listening before the somber hymns sang of a higher hope than here or these many gathered friends, maskless, except for the thin lady who left in a hurry and another of the family who came, saw, and passed the exit door before the coughing came and found the Indian wife of the speaker and only me for breathing behind cotton.
By the time they folded up the flag, I noticed billows of the wind filling out the tent top, and a thought came to me of the blue spruce tree and how things get remembered for the coming back the mind does for a monument.
They stood off, those two tee-shirt men, waiting for a shoveling over the last of him, like a Dicken's Jerry Cruncher with mud about his boots.
$112,000,000 for this. Would you do it "for a heartbeat"?
If you turn on the television an hour after noon, you’ll see what those millions purchase—the brawn of muscled men in fast collisions clapping as they meet. In the crowd, if you see it, try looking for a mask. You’re sure to find one soul for wearing when all the world is free.
It's a simple matter of choice.. We choose how we earn our keep. I recall what a colleague said to me in his classroom during my first year.
"Remember, you asked for this job."
They're requiring vaccinations now—in some places. I had to get a tuberculosis test once just to teach. And that Fulbright off to an African rainforest and a jungle where a cobra nearly found my feet required three needles before going and a two more for coming home with worms, saying that's the last of needles for me.
"You asked for this job."
The whole police department quit this weekend for finding better pay. And somewhere in a rural town in New York, there's a hospital where enough nurses walked off the job that they've had to close down the maternity ward—so much for making babies.
"You asked for this."
I'm sure there are hungry mouths to feed somewhere else in the world where a green card can get you pay. They'll always be another worker willing to do more for less. They'll wear a mask; show up on time; and do whatever it is you say.
I hope you're doing work that's worth it, as least for today.
Source: KJV Chapter 12: Verse 11
Source: $112,000,000
https://www.lcgh.net/news-1
Source: Police Department quits
https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/571739-entire-police-department-resigns-in-missouri
Source: Rural hospital where nurses quit
https://www.lcgh.net/news-1
