You walk into a small log cabin and claim one of the 20 folding
hardwood chairs arranged in a semi-circle. You are informed that
the true story you are about to hear will last an hour and 15 minutes.
You wonder if you should run home and grab a cushion, and a few
beers. . . maybe a Gameboy. How will you endure sitting on a wooden
chair listening to one person talking uninterrupted for over an
hour?
But then Jay O'Callahan, the Dalai Lama of the storytelling world,
enters the stage.
With a simple gesture and a few words, he takes you out of your
head, out of the Old Crag Cabin, out of Banff and into Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania in 1956. Then he takes you further back in time and
space. You are in Eastern Europe, around the turn of the century.
You are a 17-year-old girl named Ludvika, saying farewell to your
family and homeland, perhaps forever. Now you have fallen in love,
and you are marrying Fritz, who works at the steel foundry. Now
your children are grown up and you are fearing for their safety
as they talk about forming a union. Now you are a grandmother, preparing
potato soup for a family gathering and telling this tale.
An hour and 15 minutes has flashed by in a minute, and you are now
on your feet with tears in your eyes and clapping your hands in
delight, and you feel a profound appreciation for what this storyteller
has given you. You now understand the spirit of the labour movement
in America. You have glimpsed the history of a steel foundry from
the perspective of the mistreated immigrant workers. And you have
lived it through the eyes of Ludvika, the Polish American woman
who is telling the story to her grandchildren. You felt the worker's
anger and despair as one evening after work, when he and his co-workers
were relaxing in the bar, the foreman molested his wife in front
of everyone, and they all had to pretend it wasn't happening because
they were all afraid of losing their jobs. And you felt Fritz's
horror and anguish when he lost three fingers while using a lathe
he had never used before, thus bringing to an end the one passion
in life - playing the piano. (The racist foreman ordered him to
operate the machine, knowing he had never used it.) And you felt
the club of the company's hate-face goon squad smashing the faces
of those who dared to participate in a strike.
But you also rejoiced in the small victories: with Ludvika when
her son won a college scholarship, that precious ticket out of the
foundry. You felt the jubilation as the community pulled together
and eventually created a union which led to a safer and more egalitarian
workplace. You even shared Fritz's sense of pride, his reflection
that the steel he and his community helped mold into weapons led
to the Allied Force's victory in the Second World War.
And as the roar of that tiny crowd in the Old Crag Cabin fades,
you look around and see tear-stained cheeks and delighted, shiny
eyes, and you know everyone else was on that journey with you. And
you find yourself wondering if maybe you had finally found
Reprinted from The Valley
June 7, 2000
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