This Presidential Campaign is causing me to think about Lyle Cary. A lot.
Lyle owned a machine shop in Decorah, Iowa, where I taught at Luther College. The Shop occupied a lovely, old-fashioned building, alongside of which Lyle had built a utilitarian block building separated by an "alley" just wide enough so that he could drive his pickup in from the back, and leave it, near the street, ready for whatever it never needed to be ready for.
The Norwegian American Museum owned the buildings on both sides of Lyle's shop, and Lyle seemed to own most of the buildings across the street. Lyle did well, doing superb machine shop work; not just monster machinery, and farm machinery, but the small kinds of things kids brought in, hoping for, and finding, a friend who knew how to fix things.
Lyle was testy, and he had good reason. He was a very successful business man, and he had traveled far, learning things, and enjoying things. Lyle's problem, in part (there were other, personal demons he wrestled with, something like Jacob at the Jabbok) was that Mitt Romney was one of his customers. Not really Mitt Romney, of course, but people who thought like Mitt Romney, who did not recognize that Lyle was a really bright, really competent human being. The Mitt Romneys in Lyle's life often worked at the College. He told me, once, that it took him five years (or was it seven?) to get around to a trivial job someone at the College had given him, just because "Mitt" did not recognize that Lyle was a member of the same species.
Poor Mitt! As (was it?) Ann Richards said of George W. Bush, "He was born on third base, and thought he had hit a triple!" Mitt simply does not know anything about what goes on in the heads of people like Lyle. I do not know how Lyle voted--he may very well have voted for the guy born on third base--but I do know how much he resented the way people from "the College"--those who had Ph.D.s and cheap snow blowers--assumed that he was a lesser form of life.
Mitt cannot hear how people speak. He cannot hear how he, himself, speaks. Mitt knows nothing about what it is to be poor, or powerless. He speaks--as all of us have heard, lately--about himself as one of the people who made it on their own, without a clue about what it means to have a father who ran a car company, and who was the Governor of a State. Mitt thinks he made it on his own, just as George W. made it on his own, too, with scarcely a hand up from his Daddy's friends. George W. had not even had a chance to steal home before he found himself the owner of a major league baseball club.
Mitt thinks that half of the country simply envies him, and people like him, who have "made it". He thinks that people like that--people who have not "made it"--are "takers", and that people like him are the "makers".
In just three or four more years, Lyle is going to finish that two-inch weld on that snow blower, but he won't call the owner. He will wait for him to come in and ask.
It isn't who has the money. It is who has the attitude.
The Norwegian American Museum owned the buildings on both sides of Lyle's shop, and Lyle seemed to own most of the buildings across the street. Lyle did well, doing superb machine shop work; not just monster machinery, and farm machinery, but the small kinds of things kids brought in, hoping for, and finding, a friend who knew how to fix things.
Lyle was testy, and he had good reason. He was a very successful business man, and he had traveled far, learning things, and enjoying things. Lyle's problem, in part (there were other, personal demons he wrestled with, something like Jacob at the Jabbok) was that Mitt Romney was one of his customers. Not really Mitt Romney, of course, but people who thought like Mitt Romney, who did not recognize that Lyle was a really bright, really competent human being. The Mitt Romneys in Lyle's life often worked at the College. He told me, once, that it took him five years (or was it seven?) to get around to a trivial job someone at the College had given him, just because "Mitt" did not recognize that Lyle was a member of the same species.
Poor Mitt! As (was it?) Ann Richards said of George W. Bush, "He was born on third base, and thought he had hit a triple!" Mitt simply does not know anything about what goes on in the heads of people like Lyle. I do not know how Lyle voted--he may very well have voted for the guy born on third base--but I do know how much he resented the way people from "the College"--those who had Ph.D.s and cheap snow blowers--assumed that he was a lesser form of life.
Mitt cannot hear how people speak. He cannot hear how he, himself, speaks. Mitt knows nothing about what it is to be poor, or powerless. He speaks--as all of us have heard, lately--about himself as one of the people who made it on their own, without a clue about what it means to have a father who ran a car company, and who was the Governor of a State. Mitt thinks he made it on his own, just as George W. made it on his own, too, with scarcely a hand up from his Daddy's friends. George W. had not even had a chance to steal home before he found himself the owner of a major league baseball club.
Mitt thinks that half of the country simply envies him, and people like him, who have "made it". He thinks that people like that--people who have not "made it"--are "takers", and that people like him are the "makers".
In just three or four more years, Lyle is going to finish that two-inch weld on that snow blower, but he won't call the owner. He will wait for him to come in and ask.
It isn't who has the money. It is who has the attitude.
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