The Best Education Of All For Your Children Doesn't Cost a Dime

“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.” Patrick Henry. My mailbox was flooded after my article last week on Rich Men North of Richmond. Readers expressed nostalgist feelings and sentiments about a different America than today’s and the belief that we have lost our way. This article focuses on one convention of the past that I think should be rekindled, but first indulge me as I reminisce a bit before getting to my point.

My oldest brother Ken was in the hospital, freshly out of the operating room and had not yet met any of the nursing staff. My other brothers (Brick and Walter) and I were visiting.  A black nurse walked in. Ken turned to her and said, “I’m so glad I have a soul sistah for a nurse because I’m a black man trapped in a white man’s body.” My brothers and I gave each other the “did he really just say that” facial expression. Ken has no filters, I mean none, zip, nadda, zero. Of course, the nurse absolutely loved him. Most people do, and I think it is because they are just startled by his lack of fear to say whatever he wants.

There may well be some truth in his statement to the nurse. Ken is 11 years older than I. One of my earliest memories is a 17-year-old Ken coming downstairs, smelling of a clean shower and aftershave, sporting that clean cut Beach Boys look of his era.  Back in those days there were outdoor dance pavilions, usually on the water, all over Virginia and the Carolinas, one of which was surely his destination that evening. Mother began her inquisition. “Where are you going? What time will you be home?” Ken didn’t answer her, but he did drop Robert Parker’s 45, “Barefootin” on the stereo.  He then grabbed my startled mother and started spinning her around on the dance floor, twirling, shuffling, jiving….. As my swooning mother was recovering from her dizziness and Robert Parker was crooning “hey lil girl with your red dress on…..” Ken took his happy feet and glided his way to the front door, juking, hollering, screaming and drove off. I don’t think Mom ever noticed, but I took note. She never got an answer as to where he was going or what time she could expect him home. Pretty clever. He had his mojo working, so my guess is he may have hopped on the good foot and done the bad thing that evening.

Many of us had a favorite teacher or professor in college who made an impact on us and may have changed the direction of our lives. I didn’t have anyone like that. I had Ken. The greatest lessons were taught by Ken. As a 7-year-old, I loved the Baltimore Orioles. Their 3^rd baseman, Brooks Robinson was my hero. Now this might sound trivial, but Ken taught me a life lesson that has stayed with me ever since. He hit me grounders. It is the natural inclination for a 7-year-old to be afraid of a hardball bouncing erratically and flying towards him at 50 miles an hour.  Ken would yell at me and tell me not to be a pus#y. Back before being a confused, mentally unhinged freak was cool, no boy wanted to be a P-word! Ken yelled, “put your body in front of the ball!” I learned that getting a few bruises and perhaps an occasional lump on the forehead were small potatoes to the thrill and self-satisfaction of accomplishing a worthwhile skill. Being afraid will get you nowhere. 

My father had a rule, by the time we were 13, we were expected to have jobs. I can’t remember Dad ever preaching this rule, it was just expected. Part of this convention was to get a “real” job, doing physical labor in the boiling Virginia sun. The thought of scooping ice cream in an air-conditioned shop somewhere didn’t even cross my mind. (A buddy of mine got a job at a putt-putt course and to this day, my pals and I tease him and call him the P-word).

I’m not going to pull a Joe Biden and fabricate a story about my hardscrabble youth. We lived comfortably. Our house was elevated on a high hill, unusual for Tidewater Virginia. It dated back to 1678. We had incredible, expansive views of the Rappahannock River while Cat Point Creek rolled lazily behind our house.  It was a nice place to grow up.  Nevertheless, we were expected to work and interestingly, so were most of my friends who also lived comfortably. I noticed that many of those who could’ve really helped their family by working, did not have my father’s rule.

Ken dropped out of college and joined the Marines so he could fight in Vietnam. By the time I was 13, he was back home, married and had a job, but he also had a marine construction business on the side. I went to work for him. We built seawalls, piers, jetties and drove creosote pilings into the rivers and creeks where we lived. 12 hour plus days were not unusual. Ken taught me how to work. He’d punch me if I did something stupid. When one first starts that type of work, it is not unusual to think it must be “getting close” to lunch time. Then your heart sinks when you find out it is only 8 o’clock in the morning. At first the days go by slowly, but over the course of the summer things pick up to the point where you are less concerned about what time it is and more concerned about the quality of your work. What a great feeling it was to stand on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay and look out at the pier and boat slips you had built. Working for Ken was a bit like boot camp at Parris Island. It was hard and demanding, but at the end of training, you were a different person. I really think that if it were not for Ken, I might have ended up a different person, one that I would not necessarily like today.

I went to so called “prestigious universities” here and in England. I don’t view doing well at these institutions as any great accomplishment.  Although appreciative, I don’t value the scenic environment where I grew up. I value the jobs I had and what they taught me about myself and the world around me, not to mention the very meaningful relationships I formed and still cherish today. At 16, my tutelage under Ken was over. I began working for Wood Preservers, a multi-faceted lumber company. We produced the railroad ties for the New York Transit Authority. We pressure treated every kind of lumber product you could imagine. We had guys cutting timber and when it arrived on the yard, every inch of that tree would be used in some fashion, poles, lumber, mulch, sawdust to fire the boilers, etc. I busted my ass. Reputations are important in a community where everyone knows you and your family. I wanted a good one. Besides, I didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Wright, the owner. He was as good of a man as ever walked this earth. He rewarded me by making me a foreman over other men, giving me production goals, allowing me to drive all the heavy equipment and work all the overtime I wanted. It is a heady experience for a 16-year-old to be trusted like Mr. Wright trusted me and to be in charge of 40-year-old men who had families to support. We had some really shiftless lowlifes at Wood Preservers, but we also had some extraordinarily good people. I noticed that the good people all respected one another whether black or white, rich or poor,  and these good people all knew who the lowlifes were. I felt honored to be in the good people club and that they accepted me as one of their own. There was no greater accolade than having a man like Mr. Wright brag to my father about what a good worker I was.

Mitchell was a 62-year-old black man, and I loved him dearly. Mitchell would always request to be on my crew. We were like Frick and Frack. Whenever I came home from the University of Virginia, I would grab a jar of corn whiskey and visit Mitchell. He lived in a shotgun house with his wife and 9 children. Mitchell and I would both sip from the same jar while all 9 of his kids listened to us swap stories. We would laugh for hours.  If I am ever lucky enough to make it through the Pearly Gates, I am sure Mitchell will be the first one to greet me. I think about him often. Vet’s Inn was a black night club in the next county.  It was known for its shootings and knifings.  My sawmill buddy Cyrus invited me to come by one Saturday night. It was just like the scene at the Dexter Lake Club in Animal House. I walked in and all the music stopped and everyone stared at me, no one smiling. Then Cyrus walks up, puts him arm around me and says “Smitty awright, Smitty awright,” and then the music cranks back up and everyone slaps me on the back and shakes my hand.  Sawmill stories are the best stories, next time I’ll tell you about when Mitchell made some “homemade Viagra.” On Monday morning I asked him if it worked, and he retorted with his homespun chuckle and twinkling eye, “ah Smitty, I was rubbin’ bellies all night long!”

I’ve gone to Paris with a hot blond. Ridden a motorcycle along the Cote d’ Azur and into Italy. Skied some great mountains. Played roulette in Monte Carlo. Been to the Masters. Did the Sun Also Rises thing in Spain.  Lived in Nantucket and hung out with fancy people in Martha’s Vinyard and Malibu. Hell, I was even the grand master of a circus once and rode an elephant into the big tent. All cool, but I don’t value these experiences. They didn’t make me a better person. I value the work experiences I had as a teenager. You learn about people, some are great, some suck. You also learn about business, productivity, incentives, bad habits, different cultures, the importance of attitude, mechanics, engineering, self-discipline, saving money, witnessing bad habits you want to avoid, and a million other things. Mostly, you learn about life. By the way, Mitchell was shot and killed. So were others I worked with.

In last week’s article I stated the Oliver Anthonys were a lot smarter than many of the political and academic classes that look down on them. It goes like this. Without practical knowledge, academic knowledge is often of little use. What the elites don’t realize is the working man and the self-employed businessman are also in school. They learn by what they have experienced. In today’s universities, a student learns by what he is told. As Patrick Henry observed, what lamp do they have to guide them? As their careers unfold, the man engaged in the world listens to his experiences and observations while the one who looks down on him often relies on what others tell him is true. My experience is the sneering elitist will swallow almost any belief system, no matter how absurd, as long as other sneering elitists mouth allegiance to the same belief system.

In Richmond, all the tony private schools my children went to require community service hours. I think that is a crock, being forced to do charity misses the point. A better arrangement would be making each kid pay for a part of their education by working a real job and producing a W-2 to prove it.  Not a job in Daddy’s office, but one where they might meet someone like Mr. Wright or Mitchell. Then when they get to the elite university they will have the ability to decipher what is horseshit and what is not. They will be much more likely to think for themselves as opposed to a lifetime of letting others think for them.

The best education you can give your children is to put them to work, and it doesn’t cost you a dime.