Masters at Work
by Kathleen Everett

There is something magnificent about that which is done well. The Hudson Valley is rife with examples. And sometimes, subtly and beneath our radar, another set of masters is at work. They can be found mixed in among us regular working mortals, perhaps painting the bridge, weeding the gardens, or taking out the trash.

Showing up, doing the job we were hired to do and resisting the urge to strangle irritating co-workers—no matter how much they seem to beg for it—are the basic actions required of those of us who like the recurrent sound of "here's your paycheck." But there are also those who just can't help bringing an added measure of art to their work, no matter how mundane the job.

These are masters working at minimum wage, waging private wars on ennui, refusing to accede to prosaic surroundings. There is a housekeeper in a local hospital, for example, who folds the bathroom towels and paper washcloths into origami birds-of-paradise. On entering the usually unadorned room, a patient is met with an unexpected shot of beauty. Hers is a difficult and Sisyphean job, yet she manages to inject something lovely into her work, elevating it and infusing it with soul in the process.

Then there's the produce stocker I watched for awhile some months ago in a grocery store as he built molehills of fruit. He stacked them in improbable uphills while ensuring that all of the stickers were on the underside, generously enabling shoppers' "I-am-at-an-outdoor-market-in-Rome" fantasies. Delightful. I asked him if this was required. "No, I just like it that way." Magnifico!

In a recent visit to a ten-acre music store my companion asked the adorable poly-tattooed 20-something employee where we might find a Norman Blake CD. Yeah right, I'm too polite to say, like she ever heard of that one! "Well, we have him over there in bluegrass, though he really belongs in old-time," she says, leading us directly to the CD without obvious GPS input. Humbled, I'm half expecting her to follow that up with, "ten minutes to Wapner."

The man who works in the hardware department at a local store is a flat out genius. I suspect that he was born with an extra instinct, a psychic magnet that alerts him to approaching milled steel. Before I can get the thingy in need of replacement onto his counter he will be heading down the aisle among the 9,587,441 look-alike parts saying something that sounds like, "what you're holding there is a &3>>mol##$%^&bolt, I'd have to say metric, judging by the thread pitch, probably manufactured in Taiwan in the early 90s but this 7.5/16 bi-hex-lug-shank-spiral duo-bolt should do the job, just keep an eye on your proof load . . . It's for a lawn swing, huh?" To which I respond quite convincingly, "Yes. I knew that's what I needed, but figured I'd seek a second opinion, as experience has taught me that things never end well when I deviate from my measure-twice-screw-once rule."

Watching him work is a stunningly choreographed ballet. Smoothly he moves around the counter, confident, absent hesitation; glides down the aisle, straight to the correct drawer. He holds up the two parts side-by-side for an unnecessary but satisfying comparison. "Yup, that's the one." And the ticket price for this virtuosic performance? Nineteen cents. I briefly contemplate foraging around at home for stray parts just to watch the Nureyev of Nuts perform, but that feels exploitative. And I do not want to be in the store on the dark and purely hypothetical day that he says, "I don't know what that is"—I will not allow for the possibility that my hero, this man of steel, could in fact have feet of clay.

Somehow it's so much more entrancing when the medium is small, ephemeral, unexpected. And doubly rewarding when we can see the artist at work.

When out of town friends call and say they are visiting the Hudson Valley and want suggestions for sifting through the myriad options here, the conversation goes something like this:

OoTF: So we only have a few days, what do you recommend we see?

KE: Well, you won't want to miss Innisfree Garden. And dinner at this restaurant. Olana and the Estates are divine. Drive up through Hudson. Perhaps a concert at Bard, do spend some time down at the river. Oh, and do you have any old nuts or bolts you've been meaning to replace?