Had to retire early

Image by K. Kendall
Met this gentleman at the acupuncture clinic this afternoon. He’s there for his hands.

"It’s my work," he told me. "I was in automobile body repair, always using my hands, banging them up. I had to quit working. Got carpal tunnel, couldn’t use my hands no more. Started doing auto body work when I was a kid. My grandfather taught me. He was Native American, all my people are Native. We moved here forty years ago when the shipyards was hiring. But that wasn’t my real work. My real work always was advocacy for Native people. Started an alcohol recovery clinic right after I moved to Portland, and later my son, my daughter, my grandson, even my great-grandkid used it. Glad it was there for them. That was my real work. I still do that work. You ought to see me in my headdress. Everybody likes to take pictures of that. We got a special school going right now, about to graduate sixteen kids. They never would have finished high school nowhere else. That’s my real work. But I can’t use my hands no more. Used ’em up, I guess."

Sorry for the terrible quality. Dark clinic waiting room, only had my pocket camera. Here’s a moment when I wished for the Nikon. But then again, if I’d hauled out that big brick of a computer-on-a-rope, it would have changed the whole energy in the waiting room. The pocket camera is discreet. Quiet. Doesn’t call attention to itself.

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