Simple Wisdom, the Beauty of Work, and Tarrh

Year ago when I worked in the family winery in Corsica, I worked very closely with an old Moroccan guy named Etari Ahmed (nicknamed "Tarrh" by my uncle).  Tarrh is on my left in the picture.  Saltana is the chubby fellow on my right.  Saltana drove one of the tractors so I only talked with him briefly while he was dumping out the grapes at the winery.  Tarrh worked in the winery so I spent all day with him.  Saltana is the one who told me that planes had "hit those big building in New York" on 9/11 just a few hours after it happened.  How he found out before me when he was in the middle of a field in Corsica I will never know.

But Tarrh is the one I was thinking about today.  When I asked him how old he was, he said, "My mother said I was born in the Year of the Good Fig Harvest".  He had two or three years of schooling and literally signed his name with an "X" on legal documents.  Seventeen people back in Morocco lived off his minimum wage salary.  He lived in an actual shack so as to save money and sent home almost every dime he made.  His one indulgence was to buy Marlboro Reds for himself (which he would smoke when he was tired, cold, or hungry) .  He would give me cash folded in a paper napkin on certain nights, and I would stop at the store on my way to the winery the next morning and buy him a new case.  My uncle said this meant he liked and trusted me.  He went home for only 8 weeks a year and was apparently worshipped by his extended family for supporting them.

He once asked me why there were time zones  ("Why is the time differerent in Morroco, in France, in America?") and I had to start my explanation with, "Well, the world is round, a big sphere sitting in space." He nodded vigorously and I continued.  "Everyone wants noon to be when the sun is overhead, but it's not overhead at the same time for everyone so we change the clocks from zone to zone to make it noon for each zone when the sun is overhead".  He grunted and shook his head in wonder then smoked another cigarette in contemplation.   A few weeks later he would ask me the same question and we'd do it all over again.  Tarrh spoke in bad French with a heavy Arabic accent and I would answer in bad French with a heavy American accent. My uncle would tell us to knock it off and get back to work.

Every day started with a handshake; if someone's hands were dirty then you grasped the other's wrist and shook that instead.  The handshake was nonnegotiable.

If an elderly person was sick, Tarrh would ask, "Does he eat?" If the answer was yes then he would declare, "He will get better."

He told me, "Never throw stones at the elder, for one day you will be old too."

When we were in the 14th hour of a 16-hour work day and I would give him a suffering look he would shrug and respond, "The work is the work."

If my uncle complained about spider webs in the corners of the winery, Tarrh would smile while grabbing the broom and say, "He [the spider] works the night, I work during the day!"

If I wanted to know where a tool was, Tarrh would respond, "You look - you find."

Tarrh had a theory on race: women from different races had hotter or cooler wombs so the babies came out different colors.  (White women must have the lowest temperature.)

One day I dropped a bucket right into a vat of fermenting red wine.  The outgasses of carbon dioxide was so strong my eyes were watering and I almost fainted while trying to reach it.  (I could see it perched on top of the crust of pressed grape skins and seeds floating on top of the liquid.)  I asked Tarrh to help and he had me lower him by the ankles into the vat while he grabbed the bucket and I pulled them both out.  When my uncle found out he called us both idiots and bummed a Marboro from Tarrh.

Sometimes, the three of us would enter into a "dance of work" that I think few have experienced where one would be on his way to start a pump and grab a wrench the other needed to complete his job and silently slide it into his hand without breaking stride, signal the third guy that the pump was about to turned on so that he would open a critical valve downstream before heading up the stairs.  The three of us were so in tune with the operations we were carrying out that we would be doing 5 to 6 things at once, processing tons and tons of grapes and never exchange a word.  A look here, a nod there and we were making wine. 

I count myself lucky to know the simple wisdoms of Tarrh; the greatest of which is the bliss of work well done learned by working beside him.

Pulling for You!

Some students you know will stay in your head for your entire life.

Erinn "2N" is one of those students; she validated my choice of career early on and is one of those people that lifts everyone around her with her sincerity and humanity.  After I wrote letters of recommendation for her to get into college, she reciprocated by writing letters for me when I moved on to other high schools.

She made this pillow from scratch when Isabelle was born because "every little girl needs to have her own pillow".  She has gone on to do great things and will, hopefully, go on to do so much more.  But, today, she is in a coma (has been for a while) after being struck by a car and her future is uncertain.  I just wish I could let her know that I am thinking of her, thanking her, and pulling for her.

Self Confidence and Younger Siblings

Today I watched Sebastien (20 months) follow Isabelle (4 1/2) around.  Clearly, she is super cool and whatever she is doing is fascinating.  She, being so young, is oblivious to her brother's hero-worship.

I flashed back to years ago.  My brother Phil is 8 years younger and I can clearly remember him following me around and looking up to me.    Suddenly, a lot of things clicked into place:  My self-confidence and narcissism - could it be as simple as older child syndrome?  Always before I had thought older child syndrome was all about being an only child for the first few years and then being treated differently by your parents.

Maybe my brother's youthfulness helped shape me into who I am today!  Perhaps it is naive to think the younger children live in the firstborn's shadow.  It is we, the first born, who define ourselves in the gaze of our younger siblings! Isabelle - take the confidence Sebastien gives you and run with it!

3.14

I disapprove of pi day.  I like to eat pie too and I get that pie's are circles, but pi is not pie and this rationalization of irrationality should bother you too!

First off, pi is an irrational number (it never ends when written in decimal form).  Why confine our celebration of its transcendental nature to three whole numbers? Also, we do not commonly separate the month from the day with a decimal place  - we actually write it down as a fraction!  So 3/14 does not even make me think of 3.14....

Second, if we were going with the Europeans (which we should in this regard) and list day first, month second - then we would be getting closer at least!  Not on March 14 (14/3) but on the 22nd of July (22/7) which is known, most appropriately, as Pi Approximation Day.  (I say the Europeans have it right because day-month-year is going from small to big whereas month-day-year is just plain weird.)

Finally, a never ending, non repeating number that represents the ratio of circumference to diameter and, as a result, appears in most of our fundamental equations -  is bigger than a one day celebration.  Sure, let it blow your mind - but don't stuff the Greek letter with a power punch inside of a little 3.14 box.

Chopstick Skilz

Once upon a time, long ago - A prospective son-in-law needed to impress his mother-in-law to be.

She had concocted a most cunning test:  Slippery chinese food with nary a pronged utensile in sight.  Mysterious slivers of meat glisten on a layer of even more obscure vegetables crying out to be identified.  Taunting the son-in-law-to-be to foolishly ask "Why, what's this?  Is it edible?  Perchance is it not yucky?  What are these strange wooden sticks next to this very tiny bowl?"

No, not so easy!  Our fearless and undaunted son-in-law-to-be-hero  calmy eats with the chopsticks.  Confidently going in for seconds and thirds with no questions coming forth from his lips.  In fact, he boldly makes eye contact with the mother-in-law-to-be. 

Overconfident he begins to talk while diving in for a particulary hard to reach slippery piece of mystery meat and (oh!  the horror), the savory sliver slips right off from the chopsticks as if plucked by the devil himself.  Luckily for our dashing hero, the piece falls neatly into his shirt pocket. 

The miracle!  Eyes go wide all around the table.  What will he do?  How will he handle this?

Calmly, I pat the shirt pocket while reaching for a new piece and proclaim: "So good, saving some for later!"

James Joyce, John Lennon, and Art

Way back, in my AP English class, we read "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".  I remember thinking how cool it was that Joyce felt he had to tear down all his youthful influences to release his inner muse and become an artist.

Seems to me John Lennon is sending the same message in an entirely different medium with his song "God".

Is it always necessary to leave something behind in order to look at it?  Maybe not - but if you are not looking for a new perspective then you are not an artist, are you?

Judging Books by their Covers

On NPR this morning, Frank Deford had a nice the little piece on how athletes are held to a higher standard that other public figures. Their private screw-ups are said to shame their entire sport.  He closed with this great observation :

"It's almost as if we expect politicians and entertainment celebrities to be venal and flawed, but despite all historical evidence to the contrary, we keep expecting better from athletes. We keep saying that Woods has let golf down — because we don't want to admit that he has let us down."

I have often wondered why we confuse the artist and the art.  For example, why should I expect John Lennon to have conducted his personal life in a manner in which I would approve just because I love his music?

 

Is it that we are so superficial that we expect a single aspect of a person to represent the entire person?  The song tells me all about the author?  The athlete executing practiced motions perfectly represent some inner beauty?
 
Yes, I do think we are just that superficial...
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
(Lennon pic from http://daddytypes.com/ / Tiger pic from www.outofmygord.com)