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justanotherpackerfan posted:

River Falls Journal July 16, 1887

A special meeting was held at the River Falls Courthouse last week to discuss the rash of injuries caused by horses throwing their shoes.  Pops Cernohous, owner of the River Falls General Store reported two instances where horse threw shoes in front of his store causing a window to be broken on one occasion and a jar of peppermint sticks to shatter on the second.  Also, the school marm, Sadie Cudd reported that one of her students was nearly injured when a thrown shoe wrapped around the students ankle.  She did go on to report that the students have begun to play a game where they throw shoes and try to wrap them around each other’s ankles and score points accordingly. 

The meeting did not find a solution to the problem.  Local blacksmith, Hank O’Henry could not be reached to comment on the situation as he was  currently across the river in Minnesota trying to educate some no account slackers.

I never said he was any good. 

What I've heard from contractors (building construction) is that it's getting more and more difficult to find entry level (i.e. young) laborers to learn trades like roofing and exterior work, carpentry and even rough-in work because they simply don't want to "work like that".  They'll show up, work for a day or two and never come back when they realize how hard it is.  

We don't pound the need to go to a four-year college into the kids where I teach. We have a full shop, including teaching them welding, carpentry, and other practical skills. Many of the kids I work with go out and work in the trades and do quite well. There's many a place for a kid who likes hands-on work and and will be successful if they are willing to do what was mentioned earlier: show up on time, work hard, be polite, be willing to learn. Unfortunately, today part of a teacher's job is to teach good, old-fashioned "grit" and "stick-to-it-iveness" because kids just don't get that it's not always a click away.

Don't get me wrong: some kids are tremendous individuals with more smarts and insights than many adults I know. But a large number -- too large -- have to be pushed and prodded to get any sort of even average results. For many, maturity eventually kicks in and they learn it the hard way. Those who don't learn end up being 25 playing video games on their parents' couch. 

I don't think it's an issue with teachers at all.  If anything it's the Wall Street culture horse**** that started in the 80's.  The tech field exploded so of course 4 year degrees were sought after and essential. 

The problem is somewhere blue collar lost all respectability.  It's not a "those darn kids" or "lets blame everyone" scenario in my book.  It's a loss of a part of American culture because people were driven from it (small farmers) or the jobs being shipped overseas or breaking unions or ****heads on Wall Street calling themselves job creators while paging through Atlas Shrugged. 

Social media is still ****. 

   

 

Last edited by Henry

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