blue collar workers

Im a printer,spend my days crawling,climbing around a two story newspaper press,

After an initial career in lab equipment manufacturing I slowly transformed into Boston's Subaruguru. Ha! So now I try to protect my piano-playing fingers while burning them on hot heads and cutting them when building PCs. Today's my b-day (52), so I just bought a pretty tippy kayak. Guess I'd better learn to swim....
My Dad mixed art and craft as the head sculpter-designer at Swank in Attleboro, designing and carving all their cuff links, tie bars, etc., for 40 years! So i grew up with a basement full of bushel baskets of tiny carvings of amy and all objects a kid could imagine. He and my uncles were all toolmakers, etc., and consummate handymen. I quickly jumped sideways into a corner room, mysteriously playing with electricity, becoming a kid Ham, and all that, then built a few speakers as a teen. An ivy engineering stint got me a decade of high tech exposure before the corporate blowup. Being self-employed is its own curse, but I still enjoy using my hands, although without the artism of my Dad. I played organ as a kid. He CARVED a solid gold 1/2" Hammond B for my mom's charm bracelet (yup, with 2x 61 keys...and pedalboard) back around '65, but he never played a note. Fortunately I enjoy my Steinway B now, but interestingly can't draw anything BUT a straight line! Ha!

My career, if you can call it that, is about 15 years as a carpenter then 10 years at a local children's hospital as a maintenance tech. Been off work 5 months to the day due to a bad back.
I have enjoyed dirt bikes, four wheelers, fishing boats and cabinet making. Stereo equipment is easy on the back but has the same impact on the bank account........Pat

speedball, i think all of us who have spent so many years in the trades have a bad back & knee's ,after 21 years of industrial roofing mine's like a bowl of jello, thank god im in management now.

good luck on the back.

mike.

I eat white collar workers.
Blue collar workers are too tough to chew.