Red Sky in Morning? Join the Merchant Marines!

February 8, 2008

I awoke this morning to a view of a red sky.  I lay there drifting in and out of sleep and remembering my Uncle Alton.  Uncle Alton was a merchant marine.  The rare occasions I would see him he would tickle my knee claiming it meant I stole my mother’s sugar and recite the sea adage:  “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.  Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.”

But people don’t talk much about merchant marines.  Certainly no one at my son’s high school ever mentioned being a merchant marine as a career.  Or being an electrician.  Or being a carpenter.  Or even being a salesperson.

As far as I could tell from the meetings and lectures and discussions with counselors, there were only three possible futures for a high school boy:  college, the military, or failure.

I find that odd as a person who has strong Blue Color roots.  My daddy was a machinist, my other uncle was an electrician, and my grandfather was a carpenter.  My neighbors were mechanics and plumbers and salespersons.  There seemed no disgrace in these careers then as there does now.  Perhaps less disgrace, as much as just invisibility.

It has always been a source of frustration to me that there seems to be no real place to look for work without the military being shoved down your throat.  Newspaper ads and the internet alike call out “Learn to be an electrician” only to be a thinly disguised ad for the Navy or some other branch of the service.

That is why the Center spent a long time working with others and finally just working on our own to create a genuine alternative to the traps set by the military.  Thus we have created a webpage with alternatives for each state and postcards to hand out at counter-recruitment tables. 

Check them out: