I do bodywork for a living. For fun I torture myself daily with big stacks of iron plates. Somewhere in the house I have a bachelor’s in literature from one of those small eccentric colleges of which guidance counselors say, as mine said to me, “Try ******. Everyone there is a little strange and people won’t notice you so much.”
Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 45 of Sixteen Tons — and the flip side, John Henry — either marked me for life or just spoke to what I was already “about” at the age of around four. I was too young to grasp the working-class desperation of the songs, but something about the idea of human will wedded with physical power grabbed me and never let me go. I remember sitting on the floor by the couch, playing that record over and over, reading books about Joan of Arc and Marie Curie. Today I’m still a stew of tomboy heretic, experimenter, and physical laborer, with my nose in a book. And I don’t listen to much country music, but I still choke up on the lines
John Henry’s hammer drove fifteen feet / And the steam drill only made nine.
As for Sixteen Tons, the only line that makes me wince now is “A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.” We get brains and a body in this life. We’d be pikers not to max out both of them. If I don’t do anything else with this blog, maybe I’ll make some more friends who feel the same way.
Hey, I recognize those arms!
They were all over me last week!
have you ever listened to The Handsome Family?
I had to Google to find out who they were. After Tennessee Ernie, it was all classical all the time (with an occasional bounce from someone like the Coasters) and I still don’t know one band from another if I hear them. Contemporary music just never “took.”
I will admit I give a high five to people who write lyrics involving Nikola Tesla.
I can sing all the verses of “The Bastard King of England” though.
I like your new header
It’s Delacroix, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel.
I keep meaning to tell you that I get a Tennessee Ernie earworm every time I visit here. Coincidentally, 16 Tons was also one of my favourite songs as a child.
Has that boob always been in your header or am I just that hetero?
It’s been on and off.
Your arms are fierce in this photo. What was your body fat percentage, if I may inquire…
I actually didn’t get it measured, but I’m guessing around 19% — nothing spectacular. My ovaries shut down promptly at 17%, and they didn’t that year (it’s not that old a photo but not that new; I weigh in about five pounds heavier at the moment). The photographer gets some credit for lighting — it was done by a guy who shot for the Colt calendars.
I think they only way my back would like that is with lipo.
I’ve had the complementary thought about your midsection.
Geez. I feel like a soft old lady when I look at your arms. Beautiful! I do body work for a living too, but my thing I do for fun is garden and haul rocks around to create the beds.
Azahar sent me over here. I have been reading your comments on her blog for quite a while and I am wondering why I never stopped by before! I like your take no prisoners attitude, and I didn’t ever have a guidance counselor send me off to a small college because “everybody there is strange (etc)”. If I had had a guidance counselor, they would have said it to me, though. I did go to a small college in Alaska, because it was far away from my family and there were MEN there. Lots of men. I figured with a ratio of 7:1 men:women I was likely to get laid as often as I wanted. I was right.
I’ve gotten captured by gardening too, though I wil never have more than a shaggy garden. I used to hate everything about it because it seemed to consist of little old ladies putting petunias into beds. Now that I’ve got a big unwieldy lot and can use up a truckload of mulch, I get a bang out of it — sweat, dirt, swearing, grunting.
The day I acquired a pitchfork I felt like Liberty Leading the People.
I admit to half expecting you would think I was a big vulgar lout — I kept encountering people in massage school who would look at me and sniff distastefully and say “Yoga is all the exercise you need,” as if I’d farted in church or something by talking about weightlifting. It’s an obsession, but saner than running for public office, say.
I may bug you with plant questions.
Sled, your post on Martha Alexander touched me deeply. It is such a caring remembrance written as only you can. I’ll be reading your blogs faithfully.
aw blush.
Thanks for popping in here! I’m not always lyrical you know though. I can be frightfully vulgar. :b