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Originally published in
the Grand Rapids Business Journal, February 9, 2004.
When I was in 8th grade, I attended Holy Redeemer
school in Burton, Michigan (for all intents and purposes, Burton
is Flint). Holy Redeemer was in the shadows of General Motor's
Fisher Body One plant (site of the 1937 sit-down strike that
formed the United Auto Workers union) and just down Bristol
Road from the Chevy Metal Fabrication and Truck complex that
hugs I-75. Most of my classmates' parents worked for GM, either
at those facilities or at the many others that dominated Flint.
My Dad didn't. He sold industrial chemicals, mostly to GM.
(This would cause much confusion when somebody asked what shift
my Dad worked. He didn't work a shift, per se, which according
to my classmates, wasn't possible.)
We had Art as one of our regular classes every day in the
8th grade. You might say, "Oh you really must have enjoyed
that, you artsy cartoonist guy," but I didn't. These were
the 1970s when crafty things like ashtrays made on pottery
wheels, straw dolls, and hook rugs were all the rage. Remember
hook rugs? It was a weaved, burlap mat you'd draw a pattern
on. The mat had squares and you'd use a hook tool to attach
different color strips of yarn (according to the pattern) to
make a shaggy hunk of carpet. Just as nobody ever uses all
the ink in a Bic pen before misplacing it, nobody ever finished
a hook rug before losing complete interest in it.
Our teacher was Ms Jensen who was an odd combination of 1970's
earth-child enthusiasm for this crafty art stuff and take-no-crap
drill sergeant discipline that kept the boys in-line and hooking
their stupid rugs. One assignment that was actually kind of
fun was to collaborate with four or five others to create a
mural on a large sheet of paper. Not so much because I thought
I had any drawing skills, but because I'm an Auchter (and an
Auchter can't stand that moment at the beginning of a project
when everybody just looks at each other and wonders what to
do), I took the lead and started a scene of a lake with boats
and water-skiers. Everybody chipped in with backgrounds and
skies and birds, etc. Then Brendan Savage added shark fins
to the lake. In 1976/77, sharks were always cool. Jaws.
Ms Jensen stopped by and asked if we were drawing a lake.
We said, "Yes." Then she pounced. "Aha! This
can't be a lake because sharks are salt-water animals!" She
threatened to mark us down because she knew Brendan was just
screwing around and screwing around was only going to lead
to clay fights. But before she could follow through, I said, "But
the lake is Lake Nicaragua and there are sharks in Lake Nicaragua." She
challenged me, but I knew I was right. I had read it in my
World Book Encyclopedias that because Lake Nicaragua was a
large body of water very near the Pacific Ocean, over the years
sharks had been transported to it and some eventually adapted
to the fresh water. Check a map: http://www.un.org/works/maps/nicaragua.html
So she didn't mark us down, and my partners were happy (for
the moment) to have a dork like me that read encyclopedias
for fun. All except Jeff Lovelett who said "What do I
care if I flunk Art? I'm gonna be a shop rat just like my Dad
and work in the GM plants."
Of course it's doubtful that Jeff or any of my other classmates
ended up with a secure job in a local factory, and I was thinking
about that while drawing this week's comic. Then again, in
today's global economy, even those of us who *did* want to
pass Art class probably aren't all that securely employed.
And here's a black thought: at least with manufacturing and
software development the jobs are actually going somewhere
as opposed to, say, editorial cartooning where there's a door,
a dark abyss, and nothing more.
Not an entirely upbeat comic, is it? And I gotta warn you,
next week is pretty darn negative, too. Maybe it's this numbing
endless chill of February....
But, if nothing else, I have let you know about the freshwater
sharks in Lake Nicaragua and maybe that bit of information
can make something positive happen for you someday....
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