I knew a man in Louisville in 1980. He was raised in the country, and came to Louisville as a very young man "to work for wages". And yes, he explained that his brothers and he when childrennever wore shoes unless there was snow on the ground. 

The transition from lamplit life in rural Kentucky to city life was marvellous and difficult for him. Electricity and internal plumbing was the least of it.

Settling permanently in the city, he spent the remainder of his working life at the GE plant, a vast, sprawling production complex that employed thousands, and was about as far from a subsistence farm as you could possibly get.

He would tell with bald wonder and an unfeigned, easily admitted incomprehension of the grasping aspirations of people he'd come across. As for him, to be able to sit down to a chicken dinner more than once a month had somehow remained a minor miracle, if not celebrated with horns and cymbals, certainly looked upon with a deep, unwavering sense of something close to awe.

I never knew a gentler man, or a man less infected with the trait of self-aggrandisement. I never knew a man more filled with a calm appreciation and love of life. It radiated from him.

At the GE plant they paid wages.

for Marvin, 7/30/2022