Talking Hard Work...

While we are on the subject of hard work, I just wanted to tell you that I am a man who likes hard work.

I was born working and I worked my way up by hard work. I ain't ever got no where, but I got there by hard work.

Work of the hardest kind. I been down and I been out, I been disgusted, I been busted and I couldnt be trusted.

I worked my way up and I worked my way down, I been drunk and I been sober.
I been baptized and hijacked,worked my way in jail and I worked my way outta jail, woke up a lot of mornin's, didn't know where I was at.

The hardest work I ever done was when I was tryin to get myself a worried woman to help ease my worried mind.

I'm gonna tell ya just how much work I had to do to get this woman I was tellin you about, I shook hands with 97 of her kinfolk and her blood relatives and I done just the same with 86 people who's just her friends and her neighbor's.

I kissed 73 babies and put dry pants on 34 of em well as others done this same thing, well there are a lot of other things just like this.

I held 125 wild horses and put saddles and bridles on more than that, harnessed some of the wildest and craziest teams in that whole country, I rode 14 loco broncos to a stand still and I let 42 hound dogs lick me all over, 7 times, is bit by hungry dogs and I was chewed all to pieces by rattlesnakes and water moccasins on 2 river bottoms.

I chopped and carried 314 arm loads of stove wood, 109 buckets of coal, carried a gallon of kerosene 18 miles over the mountains, got lost, lost a good pair of shoes in a mudhole, and I chopped and weeded 48 rows of short cotton, 13 acres of bad corn. I cut the sticker weeds out of 11 back yards, all on account of cuz I wanted to show her that I was a man and I liked to work.

I cleaned out 9 barn lofts, cranked 31 cars, all makes and models, pulled 3 cars out of mud holes, and 4 or 5 out of snow drifts. I dug 5 cisterns of water for some of her friends, run all kinds of errands, played the fiddle for 9 church meetins, I Joined 11 separate denominations, I joined up and signed up with 7 best trade unions I could find, I paid my wages, um, a, dues 6 months in advance.

I waded 48 miles of swamps and 6 big rivers, walked across 2 ranges of mountains and crossed 3 deserts.

I got the fever, Sun stroke, Malaria, blue, moonstruck, skeeter bit, Poison Ivy and the 7-year itch and the blind staggers.

I was give up for less, lost and dead a couple of times, struck by lightning, struck by Congress, struck by friends and kinfolks, well as by 3 cars on highways, a lot of times in peoples hen-houses.

I been hit and run down, run over, and walked on, knocked around.

I'm just sittin here now tryin to study up what else I can do to show that women that I still ain't afraid of hard work.

...Woody Guthrie