Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [76]
Who built the wall? I wondered. Who spent months of his life putting up that wall, trying to make a perfect wall out of bricks that were not perfect? Who did this laborer’s work of art? I asked my friends if they knew.
They beckoned me to come to a remote corner of the wall over by the door and near the baseboard. There, scratched in the ancient mortar that still held the bricks together, was the name “T. Morin.”
Maybe signed work is the answer to getting better workmanship again. Everything that anyone makes should have his or her name on it
A contemplative Mr. Rooney, armed with a pen, ready to strike
for praise or blame and reference. Work is frequently so anonymously done that the workman has no reason to identify with it and be proud of it. If everyone is going to know who made it, the person making it will be more careful.
I can understand why people don’t always put their names on their work. The workman is seldom completely satisfied with what he’s done. The man who built the brick wall in my friends’ house was proud enough to want his name there for the life of his wall but modest enough not to want it in a prominent place.
During World War II, I stayed in the home of a British aircraft worker in Bristol, England. The British aircraft engines had a reputation for being the best. When the man came home from work one night, we talked about what he was doing.
“Me and my buddies are making an engine,” he said.
And that’s what he meant. He and two other men were actually assembling from scratch an engine for a Spitfire fighter plane. They were intensely proud of their work and you can bet the RAF fighter pilot who sat in the cockpit with a Luftwaffe F-W 109 in the sights of his guns had confidence his airplane wasn’t going to let him down.
Each Rolls-Royce, the best automobile in the world, is still made by hand by just a few men, not on an assembly line. The work on that airplane, or on a Rolls-Royce, is a long way from the work on the U.S. planes that are reported to have been made with bogus parts. Fake parts might get past an assembly line worker. They wouldn’t get past one man making an engine.
Everything should be signed by the people who make it. We live in a house that was built about one hundred years ago. We have raised four children in it. I know every nook and cranny, every strength, every defect it has. I know the beams in the basement, the rafters in the attic. I know the crack between the foundation and where the cellar steps lead down into my workshop—but I don’t know who built the house. This is wrong.
Every builder of every house should be compelled to attach his name, in some permanent but inconspicuous way, to that house . . . for better or for worse.
What we need in our country is fewer mile-long assembly lines turning out instant junk and fewer “project” builders turning out ticky-tack houses by the hundreds. We need more builders of solid brick walls willing to put “T. Morin” on their work.
Loyalty
For years I kept my money in the same bank and filled my car at the same gas station. I liked the idea that I was loyal.
Over the years there’s been a big turnover in bank personnel, and it occurred to me that when I went there, no one in the bank knew I was a loyal customer but me. It was the same with the gas station. I flattered myself into thinking they appreciated my business. When they gave me my change and said, “Thank you, have a nice day,” I thought they were thankful and wanted me to have a nice day because I was such a good customer. Several years ago I realized I was kidding myself. The gas station had changed hands three times, and they didn’t have the vaguest idea that I’d been buying my gas there for seventeen years.
Lately I’ve been banking and buying gas at my own convenience. I buy gas at the station nearest me when I need it or I drive to one I know is a penny