Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.
“”I lifted fifteen tons, and what did I get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” That’s Tennessee Earnie Ford telling it like it was for him. He was pissed off, but he was a whiner. You’re going to get a year older no matter what you do—lift fifteen tons or jog 10 miles every day. And, if you’re going to send your kid to college, live in a decent home, or have nice new car, you’re bound to be in debt. We’re all getting a year older. We’re all in debt. We’re all human. We’re Americans. We have so much to be grateful for. In Tennessee Earnie’s case, he had the Union to help him through Black Lung disease and cross over to the other side choking on his comfy cot.
He should’ve been given this award. I’m at a loss to name it if he got it, but it wouldn’t be the award I’ve received here tonight for 25 years of unbroken service to Tramhill’s Train Wheels. I have been awarded the “Big Wheels Trophy” named after our beloved Boss, “Big Wheel” Bobby, the great-great grandson of our founder “Locomotive” Langoul who emigrated to America from France, where he had been a simple wheelwright, working on a Barouche cart assembly line in Marseilles. He arrived at Ellis Island covered with rat bites from stowing away among sacks of grain. He came down with “Rat Fever” which he recovered from by snorting the new wonder drug cocaine, and taking long hot baths in a Brooklyn whorehouse while drinking shots of anisette.
He was a great man. Unlike me.
So, let me just say: I don’t deserve this trophy. All I did was show up for work every day. As a wheel polisher, my job is not very challenging. The biggest challenge is finding a clean rag when mine has become too dirty to use any more. Sometimes I have to go so far as to return home and grab a clean T-shirt from my underwear drawer to use to polish wheels. None of this is very remarkable or worthy of this trophy. Clearly, showing up for work every day is hardly worth a Trophy! If I didn’t show up I wouldn’t get paid and I would be fired, like my friend Fred who missed three days with pneumonia and was fired, and died under a tarp on Broadway after losing his meager health benefits. But I understand: You can’t make a decent profit with a tardy or absent workforce!
I don’t deserve this trophy, but I’ll find a place for it on my mantel between my handgun—my first-class ticket out of here—and my high school graduation picture—my reminder of when I had hope.
Thank-you.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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