By Clyde

We are all just trying to get by. With all the protests and “guvment” shutdowns, it seems harder than usual to get up and get to work. It is the commonplace concerns of the day-to-day, dog-eat-dog, hurry-up-and-wait world that begs to drag us down.

The mundanity of the world pushes us to the edge.

Everyday, repetitive, simple chores, thankless and trivial seem as endless as the winter hours; the bare, lacy twigs against the buttermilk sky send out cries for help.

The void of the 117-year-old mighty oak at St. Luke’s. Empty frames longing for a painting, empty vases await budding flowers, empty church pews after Christmas. Cold, closed-off rooms that seem even more empty before spring cleaning and downsizing.

No matter which side of Innes Street you live on, there is no parade everyday. There is no celebration or award for monotonous mediocrity.

“If ye then be notable to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest,” states Luke 12:26.

“The least of these, my brethren ye are the salt of the earth,” he said to the fishers of men.

In the U.S. $1 trillion in benefits are dividing by 63 million “qualified” needy. In our Rowan County, the number receiving benefits in the current pay status as of December was 33,140 souls.

Where would they be without it? How can you be broke if you never had it to start with?

Just swipe your card and put in your pin number.

Where does it come from and will it ever end? Could you get by with a little help from a friend?

Civil war soldiers ate hard tack and parched corn. One got two eggs packed in sawdust sent from home. Modern soldiers peeled potatoes. K.P. Cotton Mill workers had to make production or they were “out in the cold.” In 1857, E.F. Marceron, matron of the female department of the U.S. penitentiary, reported 1,067 shoes bound, 2,093 dozen clothes washed, 394 dozen mended and 150 pieces of clothes made.

“Though they have accomplished so much, still there have been many difficulties to encounter, calculated to discourage them and make their duties more trying.”

Service-oriented jobs demanded work in a timely manner, often in uniform, and you didn’t sit still until the work was done, and done right.

How many times to thread a needle to make a quilt, Glenda?

How many 50-pound bags of onions to peel and chop everyday, Seth? How many dishes to rinse and was again, Carver?

How many haircuts that are just going to grow back, Cliff?

Would you consider your job essential? Very few actually work for a living.

The Post’s obituaries are full of daily good works, their task completed thanks to their dog and cat companions. God bless the common man.

The day laborer is a dinosaur in today’s word. Neurotic, skeptic, hectic, peptic, cryptic, dyslexic, comic, eclectic — all excuses for not being able to show up for work. Whatever happened to dependable, capable, eager, polite, kind, trustworthy, motivated, caring and humble?

Empty lives may be a result of our technical prowess. We have more time to do nothing, more time to pack on the pounds — eat more freezer-burned fish sticks and corn dogs. “Double-size it.”

There’s no time to read a book or newspaper, learn to find cheap thrills or just go outside to explore the marvels of our good earth. And, they do not all have to be recorded in time on Facebook or Twitter.

Enjoy it for yourself, for the moment or share it with someone by telling them about it. Keep calm and carry on, no matter how boring.

Maybe Yankees need a proclamation of reconciliation for being put down all these years. “Whom have I oppressed,” asks I Samuel 12:3.

Clyde lives in Salisbury.