Career Bear

Not long after we moved to the country my son Kyle, who was a sixth grader at the time, informed me it was career week at his middle school. In years past my boys had always asked me to come in and talk to their class about my job, so I logically assumed this request would follow his announcement. Driving down the dirt road that led from his school to our home I was faced with an ominous silence instead of the interrogatory I expected. In an effort to clear my schedule for what I assumed would be the inevitable visit to his classroom, I resorted to asking my precious, curly headed son if he had volunteered me to give a speech about my career.

"Mom, I mean, you know, when you used to have a big office, go to New York, and like do stuff with power plants that was cool. Now, you're just sort of a blue collar worker," my dear boy replied, unabashed and barely raising his eyes to meet mine in the rear view mirror.

Fine I thought. This blue collar mama is somehow managing to provide you with a fourteen acre spread, complete with two ponds, a pool, a barn, and the burn barrel of your dreams. Economically speaking, time would show that Kyle was probably right and I should have kept my day job.

On the other hand, our daughter Gracie was only three years old when we moved to the farm and growing up with a mother who lived in manure encrusted boots obviously forced this child to set the bar on her expectations a little lower. She has always been more tolerant of my mid-life career choices and anxiously jumped at the opportunity to bring Career Bear home with her from school when she was in the third grade.

Prepared for a sleep over, the bear arrived in an Old Navy, leopard skin backpack complete with camera and a list of instructions. OK, I admit it - the only thing fuzzy Mr. Bear was missing was a red power tie and I felt slightly intimidated. In an attempt to bring him down a bit, I suggested to my daughter that we might want to dress the bear in some doll-sized overalls before his photo shoot at the barn.

As required we took pictures of the bear performing various duties associated with a normal work day at Melody Farms. Career Bear mucked stalls, fed the goat, drove the old backfiring garden tractor, and crowned his visit by sitting in the saddle atop a large chestnut gelding affectionately known as Sammy.

Now, when you agree to allow Career Bear to visit your work place you also agree to fill out a relatively simple form describing your job. Enjoying a glass of wine and the time I was spending with my daughter, Gracie and I breezed through the document until we came to the last question asking me to describe the level of education and training required to perform the duties associated with my career. Hum, this was a tough one. After all, the eight years I had spent in college were really pretty useless when it came to my current occupation.

On site training had taught me how to find the vein in a colicky horse's neck during the wee hours of the morning or how to melt snow with a blow torch when the pipes froze up during a winter storm and the horses needed water. More importantly, as far as I know there just aren't any classes in manure management offered at most institutes of higher learning.

It was getting late and my attention span for the exercise was beginning to wane. I decided an honest answer to the questions was in order and simply replied that all the years I'd spent in a downtown office dealing with New York City lawyers had taught me how to effectively shovel manure.

Neatly tucking Mr. Bear and the completed form back in his fancy knapsack, I then patted my daughter on the head. Being the forty-eight year old, third time mother of a third grader probably didn't lend itself to the proper state of reverence in this matter, but I felt pretty sure that Kyle would approve of this response from his blue collar mama.