Wilson’s elegy for the blue-collar, fix-anything American man, Gary. The Gary metaphor speaks loudly to the steady decline, over the past several decades, in the pursuit of “the trades” in the United States. Something we should all lament.
I identify with Wilson, an R&D food scientist before becoming a singer-songwriter. He never lost his roots: working at his father’s autobody shop as a kid, and having a family where everyone could fix anything. It takes one to know one.
This chapter of Honest Miles is full of Garys, everywhere in Colombia. Road workers, workers dragging construction material on motorcycles, a teenage motorcycle mechanic, and me. In the U.S., we are beginning to grieve the slow loss of Gary; in Colombia, he is alive and well.
My appreciation for Gary runs deep; I’ve always seen him as an equal in intelligence and insight, and with more common sense than many of the credentialed people I’ve studied and worked with as an adult. A gift from growing up on a remote ranch where we fixed everything ourselves. Gary makes a steadfast friend and reliable motorcycling partner, which is another reason I’m drawn to him.
I can’t shake my inner Gary. I still love fixing the plumbing, wiring a light fixture, repairing the clothes washer, changing the oil on my truck, and fixing anything else that comes my way. At 60, I now appreciate the inner Gary I have taken for granted all these years as an engineer, investment banker, CEO, and investor. My Gary has stuck with me, a constant.
Gary is lonely. Not part of the AI-driven, Instagram world our society values, mostly by choice. Left behind, his only witness to dying, his pet parakeet.
Next chapter of Honest Miles drops Sunday.