Ingenuity

I saw this the other day at a paper mill in south Alabama, where I was meeting and talking with log truck drivers.

Yes, you are correct--it's a window-unit air conditioner that had been mounted in the rear wall of a log truck.

It gets hot down here, you know? A late November day and still 75 degrees.

Now I'm sure you laughed. I'll have to admit, I did too. I told the driver I had never seen that before. He shrugged it off. "Works good," he said.

Later as I gave it some thought, I realized that it was he who should be laughing at me.

This driver is a guy with a high school education (maybe) who had a problem. He probably didn't have the money to have an expensive air conditioner installed in his truck. So he gave the matter some thought and came up with a solution--one that involved mechanical and electrical engineering, along with some serious craftsmanship.

I couldn't do that despite years of education. Even if I looked it up in some books, or researched it on the internet, I simply wouldn't have the skills to pull it off.

The driver's education is superior to mine in many ways. His degree is not from a fancy institution, but from the school of "have to." Men like him produce things that make life easier for me. I suspect for you as well.

I gave that man a pat on the back and told him how much I appreciated his work as a log truck driver--how much the economy of Alabama depended on it.

He shrugged that off too. He wasn't used to being appreciated. I don't think he knew how to react.

And that's a shame.