Dateline: 27 January 2014
I have a friend who, with the fortune of an overwhelming inheritance, has retired to yachting and golfing. He chose to visit me while I was building the stone wall of my studio, and he offered to spend the time helping me. At the end of a back-breaking day, he confided: “I haven’t had such an appetite since I was young, and I’ve never felt better. Boy, am I going to sleep tonight!” he had forgotten how good it feels to be hungry and tired. “What you are enjoying,” I told him, “is the rare satisfaction of hard labor!” I suppose if I sailed or golfed with the same enthusiasm with which I build stone walls, I might become just as hungry and tired at the end of each day, but then I wouldn’t have a stone wall to crown my feeling of satisfaction. I think I like my own life pattern.
—Eric Sloane,
From, The Spirits of '76
(1976) |
| Eric Slaone (photo link) |
I guess we all have to pick our pleasures, but it's nice to check out the other guy's once in a while, too.
ReplyDeleteI have that same feeling when I dig in the dirt. Not hoeing, digging, or anything, just digging my hands down into the earth, and enjoying it, nothing more. I guess I should add that I often do that after I have been planting or other work, but the real joy is when I get to sit in the dirt, run my hands over it, and just feel where everything we eat comes from. I can say that because, if it were not for the dirt, no vegetables, no chickens, no cows, you get the idea. Satisfaction comes in all sizes, and I like things big, and the earth, and it's dirt, are plenty big enough.
ReplyDeletePS I do believe that is one of his books I don't have. I'm going to have to check.
Nice one Herrick, Thank you!