That’s Who I am!

I was sitting at a restaurant counter in San Diego having breakfast and the guy next to me opened up his newspaper and started reading a story and it was as if the cook hit me with a frying pan. This guy was reading the story I wrote the day before, he was reading my story! Now of course I was aware that people read what I wrote, my mom, for instance, but I had never before witnessed a stranger consuming my work. Of course I wanted with every fiber of my being to say, “Hey I wrote that!” but for once I kept quiet and eventually he took another bite of eggs and turned the page and the moment was gone.

In the movie “Easy Money” a plumber, played by Joe Pesci, is getting into an argument with a bartender and the bartender says “Who are you?”

“Who am I? I’m the guy who put the bathrooms in this joint. That’s who I am” Pesci says proudly, as if that establishes his credentials.

And in a way it does. I’ve been thinking about the counter incident for years, sort of turning it over in my mind, feeling its weight, taking its temperature. And I’ve decided we are all Pesci the plumber.

Somebody cooked that guy’s eggs, I wrote the story he read, somebody laid the bricks for the restaurant’s walls, etc.

Nobody thinks those eggs or my story are vital to society (though bathrooms are pretty important).

But like Pesci, we are all proud of our little contribution. That’s why having a job is such a source of pride for many people. It’s not just the money it’s that a job makes you part of the economy, part of the vast thing that forms our world and serves all of us.

Celebrities sparkle and help define our culture but the vast majority of us contribute in smaller but more vital ways. By voting we direct our society, by donating and volunteering we make it kinder. But our jobs, be they ever so humble, drive society and serve each other.

When Pesci brags about installing the bathrooms, the bartender says “Now I know why this place stinks.”

And to be honest, the guy at the breakfast counter seemed to turn the page before he finished my article. But I don’t care. Someone read my story 20 years ago at a breakfast counter, and that’s who I am