I can't even imagine how hot it must get inside a Vegas crawlspace or above a
t-bar ceiling. Do they air condition those spaces? I don't think I would want
to be an electrician in any time but the present for these reasons-
1. Lack of safe/modern materials- Back then, no one seemed to
understand, anywhere outside the Nukes industry perhaps, the link between
substances used in buildings and cancer. In many cases better alternatives
had just not been invented yet. Lath and plaster anyone? Paint with lead?
Asbestos? Heck, even smoking was considered by the average Schmoe as a neutral
risk to health, if not somewhat beneficial, maybe. Carcinogens, black lung,
white lung, dust, lack of fiberglass ladders, scissor lifts, Pettibones...
2. Insanity of the work ethic. Construction work is hard enough. Old
construction guys seem to just about felt it was their duty to kill themselves
by working in a manner that left your body physically wracked every day after work.
Safe lifting techniques? Thats for sissies. Safety equipment? Only girls need
that stuff.. My father, grandfather and great grandfather were all in the trades
and their bodies were spent by the time they were 60, but thats just how you
worked in those days. Work was a sort of martyrdom. If you were the foreman it
was your job to be a raging(expletive) merely as matter of course and part of your job description as
official first-line "motivator" of your crew. Watching 3 generations before me
made me decide to go for the "easy work" (in my grandfather's words..hehe...*insert
irony here*) trade of electrical work.
Naw, I may possess some nostalgia for the *style* and the *flair* of past eras,
but I have no nostalgia for the state of the technology (or lack of technology) of
earlier times, or the prevailing social attitudes, and bigotries (large and small). Earlier
times may have indeed been "simpler" times, but it also bred and was populated by
"simpler" people (read: unworldy) with narrower horizons, aspirations and social attitudes.
Don't forget to consider how Sammy Davis would have fared in those days of
segregation and Jim Crow were he an entertainer outside the Vegas circuit, not a member of
the rat pack, and a comedian whose comedy schtick didn't consist of humor that was
considered depricating to blacks & jews- while considered quite socially acceptable by the
standards in it's day, but which today is considered quite
racist. Don't get me wrong, I'm no social activist or reformer, although in
this post I may sound like one. My real point is that I am not sure I
would want to be inserted into any other epoch but the present- I would find it a bit boring,
constricted and confining after a while- even a place like 50's Vegas.
Last edited by trollog; 07/19/07 12:21 AM.
