Skills and thrills

By TAD BARTIMUS

It was pouring rain when I drove past my friend's truck. Instead of waiting out the storm she was wading into it, strapping on her lineman's belt and attaching climbing hooks to her worn leather boots. Another day, another dollar. This grandmother was on the job, and glad of it.

Stories that proclaim "she's the first woman to (fill in the blank)" have all but disappeared from newspapers and television. This is good. This is the way it should be.

My friend is a telephone repair person. Not repairman, repair person. Card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Scaler of poles, fixer of phones, all-around critical link in an isolated small community always at the mercy of natural elements. She has earned every wrenched knee, bruised elbow, scraped cheek.

My next stop was Sears, to get a replacement washing machine. The sales clerk, an experienced member of the management team, regaled me with agitation configurations and spin cycle speeds. I wanted this model, she said, because it's porcelain lid wouldn't rust in my wet climate. But maybe I'd want to upgrade a little and get the one with the heavy-duty lint filter. Of course, there was a slightly more expensive version with an automatic shutoff when the clothes are dry. And so it went, this fact and that figure from a savvy saleswoman who had the right stuff. It took just 20 minutes to roll me up from the cheapest model to the top of the line "because you and I know what we really need to do laundry, right?" She was so good I wound up buying the dryer, too.

At the car dealership I turned my squeaking brakes over to the service department supervisor marching around my car with her clipboard, firing questions and checking off boxes. "Better check 'em out," she warned, "doesn't sound good to me." Two hours later I drove away confident this woman's training and skill would get me home safely.

On my last errand of the day my friend with the new baby and two middle-school kids greeted me at the landfill and pointed to where she wanted me to take my black bags. We grabbed a few minutes to talk as she told me how glad she was to be assigned to the dump after years of filling potholes, riding on the back of the trash truck and directing traffic around the jackhammer crew. For the first time in years, she said, she could wave the kids off to school instead of reporting to work at sunup. "I'm a lady of leisure," she laughed, her leather-gloved hands guiding yet another loaded truck to the edge of the pit.

Used to be that pundits wrung their hands over whether Barbara Walters was qualified to read the nightly news. Now there's nary a ripple when Elizabeth Dole explores a run for the presidency or Laila Ali announces she's going to become a professional boxer like her dad Muhammad.

Stories that proclaim "she's the first woman to (fill in the blank)" have all but disappeared from newspapers and television. This is good. This is the way it should be. There may be more hard ground to gain before women achieve financial parity and full respect in the workplace, but we HAVE come a long way and we're nobody's "baby" now.

The sons as well as daughters of these women who repair telephones, sell washing machines, supervise auto mechanics and fill potholes see their mothers not as pioneers, but as normal. They see them do their jobs with pride and collect their paychecks with self-respect. Their example, day in and day out, is what ultimately will change perception into reality.

Laila Ali claims she's not trying to be like her father, she just likes boxing and doing it makes her feel good. With classic Ali self-confidence she proclaims: "I've got the skills and I've got the thrills. If you're good at it and you can make money at it, I say 'go for it.' You've got to follow your heart."

Thus endeth the lesson. Amen.

© Copyright 1998-2000 The Women Syndicate. The content on these pages is the property of The Women Syndicate and may not be used without express permission. Contact friends@tadbartimus.com