And what's really sad is it doesn't have to be that way.

When I was in college, I worked summers on a golf course construction crew, laying irrigation pipe, shaping greens, digging roots out of the fairways, that sort of thing. It was hot, tough work, but I and my hippy workmates: Coxman, Haploid, Fucking Freddy, Big Tim, The Artifact Man, Diebold (yep, the heir to the security lock fortune), Palmetto, and Covey-baby were hot and tough too. It was outdoors work in a beautiful place, right next to Buck Hammock, and we had a great boss, an old Cracker golf course architect who had underbid the University's own Grounds Department to supervise the job, and was doing it faster and cheaper than they ever could.

One day the University Grounds Superintendent came by to give our boss some shit, and we were unloading a semi full of 80 lb fertilizer bags, stacking them up neatly on pallets in the barn. The Super was outraged that we were singing Beatle songs as we unloaded the truck, and complained to our boss how he could allow this.

"They'll have that flatbed unloaded in an hour, not an afternoon like it would take your people. They can sing all they goddam want."

I'm really proud of my work on that golf course. It's still there. Check it out:

28 04' 29"N
82 24' 27"W