SOME OF LIFE'S BEST LESSONS AREN'T LEARNED IN SCHOOL...

I have seen the depths of labor

Where your worth is measured

By your work...

By dint

Of your brow

In beet fields in Nebraska,

Fruit orchards in Michigama

And Ohio cuke and tomato farms;

Turnarounds of refineries in Kansas

At Minnesota pork and pollo matanzas

And in newsrooms all over

And so my father said to me when I was a boy

As we alighted from the back of a truck

To pick cotton upriver of El Ranchito on Military Highway:

Fijate, Juan. El que viene a trabajar no pregunta. No'mas llegando, agarra surco. Al guevon no le queda bien el mecapal, quiere saber donde esta el garrafon de agua, y a que horas se acaba el dia.

(Look, son. The real worker doesn't stand around asking questions. He takes the first row he sees. The lazy man complains that his sack harness doesn't fit, wants to know where the water jug is at, and what time we go home.) 

This lesson,

Imparted by a man with "no" education

Has proved to be true of people 

I have met 

Throughout my working life 

Whether in a field, a factory, refinery

Or a corporate news office.