My Roommate is True American Hero

My roommate is a true American hero.

He gets up early, and walks over to Labor Ready, taking grunt work for little pay.

Look around at society, if you will, and see the many who would not do such work, at such wage. Look around at the many who would understandably take an unemployment check, or a government assistance check, or find another way out of such work.

I confess I would not want to be a day laborer, not at the pay they get.

But, if you will, all the ways out of such work that our society has created only make the day laborer who remains that much more precious,  that much more of a hero. When you talk of the economy and how it is doing, you are more likely to talk of the stock market, and the housing market, and the gross national product. But, as much as anything, what holds our economy together is the willingness of people to work. You cannot measure this simply by the unemployment rate, as there is no distinction in that between those who are willing to work who can't, and those who simply seek a way out of work.

If we all were willing to work, taking the hard, ill-paid jobs, that would be a mark of a good, sound, solid economy. Not the only mark, but a good mark just the same.