Wandschneider mug

Basically, this place works because of work. People still work here and they love their work and value work. They rope and ride, cook and bake, cut and weld, build and grow, write and sculpt. They sell things and fix things, take care of people and animals and fish and streams.

A lot of work can be done solo, but it also takes teams. Doctors need and work with nurses, lab techs, x-ray techs, and secretaries; builders need plumbers, electricians, and truck drivers and backhoe operators; artists need foundries and galleries; and brewers need grunt labor and bookkeepers.

Im not saying that people in other places dont work, but I do think that much of the urban and suburban workforce the part not involved in low-wage service jobs is engaged in paper-swapping, bureaucratic infighting, analyzing, and speculation. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said recently that we have gone from a country and economy built on wages to one built on rents: profits that dont represent returns on investment, but instead reflect the value of market dominance. My interpretation: rents means money collected on money invested, but not invested in making things or providing services, but betting on the ups and down of markets currency appreciations and depreciations; daily stock market fluctuations; shorting this or that investment; gambling on the perceived and always changing values of anything from a cell phone to a horse race.

One of my favorite modern gambles and, as far as I can tell, one with no public value is grabbing up patents on just about anything and then suing companies that make something or do something that resembles the patent grabbed. Apple and Microsoft have departments that look after these things, to deal with the companies formed just to sue them. This from todays New York Times: The number of patent-infringement lawsuits has soared, partly because of Erich Spangenberg. His firm has sued 1,638 companies in the last five years. The look of an iPhone; the keypad on a Samsung

Krugman contrasted the General Motors economy of 60 years ago an economy where GM was the big dog in the country and directly employed about 500,000 people, or about 1 percent of the total U.S. workforce with todays Apple economy. Apple is the most valued company in the country and employs fewer than .05 percent of U.S. workers.

Another note: GM workers in the 1950s made the equivalent of $60 per hour in todays wages; Walmart our current largest employer pays $10 an hour.

Back to Wallowa County, where we dont have a Walmart or an Apple factory or outlet. Or, as far as I know, a company that specializes in finding patents to sue over. And where wages are not high! What we have is a bunch of people who want to live here and do the things it takes to live here. They want to grow hay or make art or take care of patients. They sell fishing gear because they like to fish; doctor because they like people and medicine; raise cows because they love the land and their outdoor independence; or work in a hardware store because they like people and get satisfaction from helping their friends solve home problems, and playing on the softball team! And, a common saying by successful newcomers people who have been here only 10 or 40 years is that we live here because of the people.

I was recently interviewed about the roots and growth of the art community in the county, and along the way talked about work as a vocation, about doing things out of passion and some kind of calling that says this is what one should be doing in life. I said that I and my classmates had gone to college to find out what we wanted to do, without much concern about how much money we would make (in honesty, we assumed, in those days, that there would always be jobs and wages enough to make our lives tick).

Some of my old friends have done well financially, some not so well. But almost all of my closest oldest friends now in their 70s are are still working at something they love: the doctor is still doctoring, the engineer still engineering; my college professor brother is still teaching; the quarterback on my college football team has moved from chemistry to tutoring homeless kids and writing mystery novels; and I still go to work every day now as a librarian! loving what I do.

And loving all of the strange and wonderful people in Wallowa County and their crazy dreams and vocations.

Main Street columnist Rich Wandschneider directs the Alvin M. and Betty Josephy Library of Western History and Culture housed at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture, located in Joseph.