Can You Emagine That

Can you imagine for a while
this story I'm about to tell,
some 70 years have come gone
with technology changed as well.

Come with me now, back in time
07 -70 years,
I'm looking at 1937
a tall man, strong, with no fears.

Back before the cell phone
before the computer age,
even before the chainsaw
and all our technology rage.

I see this man with axe in the hand
perched upon this tree,
he swings it straight and it cuts true
and it looks like work to me.

But I doubt he was ever overweight
or needed the gym at night,
never had a problem sleeping
this working with all his might.

These trees became railroad ties
he cut them square and true,
I was told they brought eight cents each
And that he made money too.

It's hard for me to imagine
what a dollar brought back then,
when I sit here in 2007
and we need so many of them.

Eight cents a tie, is $80 per hundred
As I stretch my mind to that seen,
if you wanted to make 250.00 per day
you'd be cutting 313.

I asked him how many he cut
to round out his whole day,
he told me it was about 41
so it doesn't to compare with today.

The ties were stacked upon double sleighs
that were pulled from the bush with a cat,
he said the eyes from wolves would glow
can you imagine that.

There are many hardships from yesteryear
that we don't see today,
and so many changes in 70 years
as time has come, and gone away.

I still wonder what it was really like
to cut railroad ties with an axe,
the blade was big, and broad and heavy
you'd need endurance to the max.

He said they used the pine tree
but at times the wood was red rot,
so he cut in with his sweedsaw
white sawdust meant its not.

Back then the jobs were scarce
you'd never quit for sure,
I think it made for tougher men
as hard work they had to endure.

I know my dad was a muscled man
by the arm wrestles that we had,
we even bent the table legs
but it made my mother sad.

Responses

2 comments so far.

1. 4 SUGAR BEAR says:

   I really liked this piece you wrote. I enjoyed the history, and the difference of hard earned money. Folks are clueless, what hard labor true is... Everything made these days are nothing like they used to be built, such as houses, furnuiture, respect, commitment etc. Nice Job.
   ~PEACE OUT

2. Russell Warner says:

   The rhyming scheme here does a great job of making this look back sound quaint—which I think is the effect you desire—a sense of a simpler time. This is nice. But the bit about the chainsaw is innaccurate. Variations on the chainsaw have been around since the late 1800s. And the modern gas-powered chainsaw was patented in 1929.

   Also, right after the line about the chainsaw, "all our technology rage." I wonder if you mean rage that is technology induced or when a fad or trend is "all the rage." I think you mean violence induced by technology and I have to say that's cliché. Maybe things are faster or more stressful or hurried; but we're just as violent as we ever were.

   Great piece. Good work.