Great thread guys!

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Karl Ploessl <karl.ploessl@gmail.com>wrote:

> kind of arrogant. You should go over into www.vwvortex.com and look and
> read
> around. Most of the contributors are young ones (mid 20th) and sure there
> are some kids who have rich parents and lots of money and have their
> modifications done in a shop but many of them modify their rides themselves
> and you should see the outstanding and professional results. You might not
> like the style (often it's lower and lower the cars) but it does not take
> anything away.
> I think you are generalizing way too much and hanging on to the "good old
> times".
>
> Karl.
>
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Don Hanson <dhanson@gorge.net> wrote:
>
> > Young people today (especially in the USA) don't need look very closely
> at
> > life to know that those who do stuff with their hands, as in "the Trades"
> > are now mostly living  below poverty level.
> >  Remember those professions?  "Tradesmen"?  You know, Carpenters,
> > Electricians, Plumbers, Mechanics, Painters..etc?.  Not "Happening" any
> > more. Learning how to do something like fix a car or hang a door...That
> is
> > considered a waste of time and beneath a "real person"..All the trades
> seem
> > to be handled by the illegals now, because they are jobs "Americans"
> won't
> > do any more (for the money that's being paid, anyways)
> >  I know, having been a journeyman carpenter and sometime-contractor, that
> > wages in the Trades are about what they were 20 years ago.  Great money,
> if
> > you are from south of the border.  But you'd have to be a real fool to
> > consider learning a trade as a career now...
> >  For a few years, I worked as a master shipwright, building and repairing
> > custom sailboats in an upscale boatyard in the Northwest.  One winter
> > during
> > a slow day, we got out all our past year's customer invoices and for
> > curiosity went through  to see what all our yacht owner-customers did for
> > money....Of 300-odd customers  only two actually  did anything the
> resulted
> > in 'real' results....by real, I mean created a 'widget' that they could
> > sell
> > or point to and say  "That's what I do"...The yacht owners didn't do any
> > manual labor at all...they bought, sold, advised, brokered, commissioned,
> > etc..If they didn't do their money making jobs....nobody would miss their
> > "product" because they have no product...except money..
> >  So youngsters today aren't dumb.  They look around and see what is what.
> > Then they decide to spend their time learning how to earn enough money to
> > pay 'flunky's' to fix their Porsche Cayenne or their Hummer while they
> play
> > tennis or golf and phone the office once or twice to make a few more
> mil...
> >   Getting dirty working on a  car?...Out of fashion.  Pounding a nail?
> > Nah, you go by the local 7-11 and get a casual day labor guy to do that
> for
> > you for a few bucks an hour..
> >    "Nitwits"?  The young people today think working on a car is a
> > nitwit-job and not worth doing..most of em.  If they can pull it off,
> they
> > may be right.  I kinda like it, though...so I guess I'm a dinosaur, doing
> > stuff with my own hands...
> >   Don Hanson
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Karl
> 1981 VW Westy "Jenny"
> 2000 VW Jetta GLS VR6
> Wilmington, DE
>

--
Jake
1984 Vanagon GL
1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
Crescent Beach, BC
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
http://subyjake.googlepages.com/mydixiedarlin%27