His first drafts were his final drafts. You could hear him typing late at night, and smell the smoke from his cigarette. He wore pin stripped, button down shirts and cuffed charcoal gray slacks. He always wore a sports jacket without a tie. He read the New York Times, and talked about art form movies, contemporary fiction, and Broadway musicals. Coming from the Upper West Side, and he knew what it meant to dine in a four star restaurant. He had been to Europe twice, had interned at his father’s newspaper and spent summers at Flying Head Point. 

He also had a liberal-chic side to him: uncombed hair, a distinct body odor, and penny loafers without socks. He reminded me of my Contemporary Fiction professor, a recent graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Jim spoke in long sighs without direct eye contact He was unfriendly and arrogant and unafraid to tell you he was brilliant.  I took a deep breadth whenever I spoke to him. Although he was afraid to get his hands dirty, he was most willing to pick apart my grammar. He especially talked down to students like me who came to college with no books in our background. 

Jim was very different from the rest of us. For the most part, we were working class kids who wore sweat pants to class, and ate at the Dairy Queen when we could afford it. We rarely read for enjoyment or put in long hours in the library. Our idea of current events was the latest stats on the team back home. We hunted in the fall, went to Sunday mass, marched every Tuesday at ROTC, and cut class whenever we could. We went to college to please our overworked parents. 

Although I had nothing in common with Jim, I wanted to be just as witty, sophisticated, and urbane. I subscribed to a literary magazine called the "Saturday Review." I read the "New York Times Review of Books." I even joined the Book of the Month Club. I started to drink coffee, displayed my books and even experimented with smoking. Who was I kidding? I did not derive pleasure from reading literary criticism, nor could I tolerate contemporary fiction. More important, Jim’s lifestyle cost money. Best sellers were expensive as were the latest Charlie Parker records, movie tickets, trips to Montreal, dry cleaning and five-ounce hamburgers at Charlie's. I could not afford culture. 

I needed a more down-to-earth role model. While I admired my father ‘s distrust of authority, I found his closed- mindedness difficult to accept. Jim’s sophistication was appealing but as I said previously, his arrogance and narcissism offended me. Hans was cool. He combined education and a trade in an unassuming manner. He was passionate about ideas and he was happy to share them with me. I knew I wanted to be like him. 

This was not the first time I had found a role model in the workplace. Two summers earlier I had worked with an elderly Scottish mechanic in the shipyard. I dug out faulty welds from huge rings with a twenty pound hand-held hydraulic grinder. It was dangerous and numbing work. The deafening noise and foul smells of the abrasives scorching black steel filled the air. Mr. Scott made sure I held my grinder away from my body. Otherwise I would have sliced off my leg or something worse.

At lunchtime I would leave exhausted to rest outside in the clear air. Mr. Scott never joined me; instead he went off by himself to eat and read. One day as I passed him on my return to the work area, he asked me if I enjoyed poetry. His question caught me off guard. The only thing I thought about in this place was the 3:30 air horn signal  to pack away your tools.  "Um...of course...I like the Romantic Poets... John Keats... bought a new biography about him last fall."

 "Do you know who Robert Burns is?" he asked.

 "Yes. He’s a Scottish poet, isn’t he? There is a statue of him near my church."

 "That’s right. Do you know any of his poems?"

 "Well not really. I do remember one poem though I think it starts, My Bonnie lives over the ocean."

"Oh, you mean ..." He then recited it verbatim adding two more, his favorites, he said proudly. "I know them all by heart.  I eat with Bobby Burns everyday. I carry his verses in my pocket. You see this book?"  He took out a small leather bound volume from his rear pocket. "I have had this book since I was a child. I take it every place I go. Bobby Burns takes me back to my childhood." 

Both Hans and Mr.Scott  influenced my literacy. They were skilled tradesmen who appreciated philosophy, poetry, and history. They read books but did not flaunt their learning or look down on others. Their literacies were real.