Have you ever heard the old blues line, ” Been down so long, it looks like up to me?” Well, I was one of the fortunate ones in that the line never applied to me. But I may have thought it did. As a youth recently fled from New York city I did not have an easy life. Fun, yes; easy, no. So, how to explain how I got from there to here? I had a boost from my father, although I did not know it at the time.
History
It was the example of my father that eventually helped. We were on the outs for several years, so it took a while to separate my antagonism for him from some genuinely good ideas that he had. This may seem laughable, but I think it’s a common trait: separating bad feelings from good ideas.
Some family history will help explain. The Carreras family had at one time been wealthy. My grandfather had been exiled to the family’s New York office for the sort of bad behavior you’d expect in rich playboys. Soon, he’d marry his landlord’s daughter, attend and graduate from Columbia, and start a family. What a wonderful life, four kids, a nice home, servants, and great prospects. Then along came the depression, and heart disease. At seventeen, my father was working on the docks to support the family. Soon, he had seaman’s papers and was a world traveler, sending money home to the family.
Working the Angles
He was always working some angle. From him I learned, and eventually put into play, the policy that you always have more than one hustle going or in the planning stages. With only a ninth-grade education, his work table was always full of manuals from trades he was studying.
After I graduated from years as a Pius Itinerant and settled into getting a college degree, his advice was direct, ” Louis, get your degree and a career, but always have a trade for a backup.” Sure enough, when I left grad school, I couldn’t find a position as an anthropologist, and fell back on my abandoned trade as a surgical technician for two years.
The Method
I truly didn’t consciously know that I was emulating his methods until Billy Bob Clinton Reinvented Government. ThenI reinvented myself as a Maritime woodcarver and Videographer with a big side boost of blue-collar work at UPS. Eventually, I began to understand the pattern. By then, I had promised myself never work for a government agency again, and came to prefer the life of multiple side hustles.
So I’ve been down, but got back up. The key definitely is not to be a lazybones coasting on your current success. A sensei in Japanese martial arts once expressed it this way, “Don’t stand on your skeleton, be on your toes ready to respond.”
Don’t be passive, plan.
Discover more from Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think the first love in life was reinvention. I do so love reading about your history of reinventing yourself Lou.
It was a necessary skill!
Many are the times I benefited from my ability to type 80+ wpm
I think I would have been much happier had I taken up a trade. Probably too much sexism. Speaking of isms, your reference to lazybones sent me off to that video streaming platform to hear the song. Hoagy Carmichael! Gosh, the video clip was so sleazy, and the servant, so racist in those days. But a huge talent. Hope you can make sense of that ramble, Lou. But perhaps there are aspects of the video clip you could relate to…
I’ll have to check it out, Tracy. But you are right about the sexism inmany of the trades, and to be honest I hadn’t thought about that as I wrote the post.