The Damned Can Plant

14 January, 2016.    Buenos Aires, Argentina

NOTE: All photos courtesy EARL W. HAMPTON, JR.

Ever had friends that you see only occasionally, but when you do, you pick up right where you left off? 

Years ago I was friends with just such a person: a man named John Karas, who lived in the faraway village of Stevensville, Michigan. Like most people I know, associate with, or like, John didn't fit any known mould. He sported a 1910-style handlebar mustache, passionately loved streetcars - and the City of New Orleans, and he rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle with an FM radio (at a time when all that was played on FM was Easy-Listening "elevator" music!)

He was soft-spoken, puffed occasionally on a pipe, listened intently to whomever he came into contact with, and when he himself spoke, he had the knowledge and demeanor of a college professor. Hands down, he was one of the most interesting conversationalists I have ever met in my life.

One day, early on in our friendship, I asked him what he did for a living. His answer surprised me. He told me that he worked at a can manufacturing plant in the greater Chicago area. His specific job — the one he did for many years — was to operate a machine that sprayed the inside of tin cans! 

That just blew all my assumptions out the window! He had a mundane, repetitive job, yet he was in every sense of the word, an intellectual. John would do shift work, and then, when he got his vacations and days off,  he would get into his 1965 Chevelle, and head down the road to trace old trolley rights-of-way, and when he could, he would take a jaunt down to New Orleans. There he would visit "the Shrine of Trolley" as he jokingly put it. 

His car was no thing of beauty. It was, by his own admission, and in his own words, a "rolling mass of Bondo." It was minimalist transportation, that was all. He saw no sense investing good, hard-earned money in quality body work on a mere automobile. It had four wheels, a motor, and it ran.

Being a trolley fan, John installed a real, honest-to-goodness streetcar gong under the hood of his Chevelle. He delighted in pacing alongside antique New Orleans streetcars and CLANG! - CLANG! - CLANG! his bell to the bewilderment of motormen and passengers alike! Some time later, not content with just one, he soon afterwards hooked up a second trolley bell, and with both, he could play the first bar or two of "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans." When one adds to that a real, old fashion police siren installed previously, his automobile was was also a rolling eight-cylinder band!

All I needed was a quick call from my best friend, Earl, letting me know that Karas was back in town, and I'd jump in my car and head for Earl's place. We'd sit on the porch to await John's arrival, and we knew he was approaching by the horn honking, the siren wailing, and the bells clanging!! It was always a sonorous event, a ringing performance put on for our benefit!

As I said, my friends just did not fit any mould known to Man!

One thing that struck me as odd, though, (trolley bells and sirens notwithstanding!) was that, in referring to his place of employment, way up in chilly Michigan, he would always refer to it as the "Damned Can Plant." Now, an intellectual with a Keystone Cops sense of humor would just naturally be bored and suffer from an acute lack of mental stimulation working in a blue-collar assembly-line type of repetitive, almost menial job. I got that. So I asked him point blank one day why he wouldn't quit that awful job at the "Damned Can Plant," and look for something that would feed his mind, or at least would give   him something to do that he actually enjoyed.                 

He replied that he was well-paid at his hum-drum job, earning union wages, and it would be impossible to duplicate his high salary elsewhere. Although the task in and of itself indeed was boring and greatly unfulfilling, he took nothing of it home with him when he knocked off at the end of his shift. Moreover, his job gave him the money to buy and to do the things he liked, such as purchasing books on streetcars, or a getting a tuneup for his motorcycle. His job also paid for his jaunts way down yonder to New Orleans.

I suggested that he could simply move to New Orleans and get a job there; in that way he would be in a city that he loved all year round and would not have to pay a dime to get there. He could ride those wonderful old streetcars to his hearts content, too! He liked the idea, but he had too many years invested at the "Damned Can Plant" to just up and quit.

I thought how sad it was that John gave up so much of his life doing what he despised so he could spend some of his remaining time doing what he enjoyed. I thought of a Beatles' song that went: *"For a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure..."

Life, after all, is a trade off.

John taught me a lesson here: whatever job you have, make it as enjoyable as you can.

In this way, when you complete your work for the day, it will not be merely a day of work done. Some sort of pleasure could be gleaned from the blood, sweat, and tears that jobs quite often are.

My father-in-law often said: "Work is just that: WORK. That is why it is called 'WORK!' If it would be fun, they would call it 'FUN' instead." Seems logical, but it is obvious that between the skull-dragging of earning a living and the frivolity of vacation time, there must be a middle ground in which a job itself can be remunerative, and the worker can derive pleasure directly from that work itself, not merely enjoying what wages can provide.

THAT IS THE KEY!! If one can change one's ATTITUDE on the job to a more positive, less uptight one, some actual enjoyment may just issue forth, and one's stress level will be lowered in the bargain. In the case of the "Damned Can Plant," perhaps alternate employment in a better location would have worked out for John. I will never know.

After years on the line, John eventually retired, slinging that millstone around his neck into the trash can, cashed in his retirement, finally got married, and spent a few years doing exactly what he wanted to do. If, in his final days, John were to have been asked if it was worth it, slaving away unappreciated and under-qualified for so long at the Damned Can Plant, what might he have answered?

I once read somewhere that a microscopic bit of DNA rubs off onto us whenever we shake hands, and thus that person becomes part of us. I also heard once that each and every human being is, in a way, the sum of every person that we have ever known or met, however briefly.

So it is that we need to be mindful of how that interaction might effect others, when we come into contact with them. We take from others, as well as leave behind something of ourselves.

Though John had his flaws and imperfections, as have we all, I can truly say that I am a better man for having crossed paths with the one named John Karas, on that "Road Less Taken."

*"Girl" - Lyrics by John Lennon

Was she told when she was young that pain
Would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back to earn
His day of leisure?
Will she still believe it when he's dead?
_________________________________________________________________________

                      BELOW: Earl W. Hampton, Jr. Photo - used by kind permission.

                

                ABOVE: John Karas with friend Byron Pulley in car #453, once on display in the French 
                     Market in Old New Orleans.   Somehow,   I think John would most like to be remembered 
                     doing what he loved best,  in the CITY he loved best   ..... and at the "Shrine of Trolley!"