A working class hero

daddy and me

Over dinner tonight my fiance and I started to talk about our current jobs and what we wish we were doing instead. It then turned into an emotional conversation where I began talking about my Dad. He never finished school, he ended in 8th grade. Instead he stayed home and worked on the little farm my grandparents had in their backyard in New Jersey. My Dad was always an extremely hard worker. Every night when I was little I would remember him sitting on the couch watching tv with an ice pack on his arms or back (he did construction even though he had surgery in his shoulder in the late 80s/early 90s) then he'd be up before the sun the next day and I'd be getting ready for school. I'd sit on the floor in the living room eating cereal while we watched The Andy Griffith Show. My dad has done so much for my family. He remodeled our entire house and began his own Home Remodeling and Repair business when the economy was booming. Now my parents have the bank hasseling them, and in the process of losing the home my father worked so hard on to foreclosure.

It makes me think about the unappreciated jobs (the start of our conversation) All too often I am asked "So I hear you're a teacher?" yes "What do you teach?" preschool "Oh."

As soon as your born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function you're so full of fear,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,

But you're still fucking peasents as far as I can see,

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill,

A working class hero is something to be.

A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

-John Lennon