I could not properly describe myself using my own prose, so I have chosen to use the words of the late, great Woody Guthrie:
I just wanted to tell you that I am a man who likes hard work.
I was born working and I worked my way up by hard work.
I aint ever got no where, but I got there by hard work.
Work of the hardest kind.
I been down and I been out.
I been disgusted I been busted and I couldn't be trusted.
I worked my way up and I worked my way down.
I been drunk and I been sober.
I been baptized and hyjacked.
Worked my way in jail and I worked my way outta jail.
Woke up a lot of mornin's, didnt know where I was at.
The hardest work I ever done was when I was tryin to get myself a worried woman to help ease my worried mind.
I'm gonna tell ya just how much work I had to do to get this woman I was tellin you about.
I shook hands with 97 of her kinfolk and her blood relatives and I done just the same with 86 people who's just her friends and her neighbors.
I kissed 73 babies and put dry pants on 34 of em well as others.
Done this same thing well there are a lot of other things just like this.
I held 125 wild horses and put saddles and bridles on more than that.
Harnessed some of the wildest and craziest teams in that whole country.
I rode 14 loco broncos to a stand still.
And I let 42 hound dogs lick me all over, 7 times I's bit by hungry dogs and I was chewed all to pieces by rattlesnakes and water moccasins on 2 river bottoms.
I chopped and carried 314 arm loads of stove wood.
109 buckets of coal.
Carried a gallon of kerosene 18 miles over the mountains.
Got lost a good pair of shoes in a mudhole.
And I chopped and weeded 48 rows of short cotton.
13 acres of bad corn.
I cut the sticker weeds out of 11 back yards.
All on account of cuz I wanted to show her that I was a man and I liked to work.
I cleaned out 9 barn lofts.
Cranked 31 cars, all makes and models.
Pulled 3 cars out of mud holes, and 4 or 5 out of snow drifts.
I dug 5 cisterns of water for some of her friends.
Run all kinds of errands.
Played the fiddle for 9 church meetin's.
I Joined 11 separate denominations.
I joined up and signed up with 7 best trade unions I could find.
I paid my wages, um, a, dues 6 months in advance.
I waded 48 miles of swamps and 6 big rivers.
Walked across 2 ranges of mountains and crossed 3 deserts.
I got the fever, Sun stroke, Malaria, blue, moonstruck, skeeter bit, Poison Ivy and the 7-year itch and the blind staggers.
I was give up for less, lost and dead a couple of times.
Struck by lightning, struck by Congress, struck by friends and kinfolks well as by 3 cars on highways, a lot of times in peoples hen-houses.
I been hit and run down run over and walked on knocked around.
I'm just sittin' here now tryin to study up what else I can do to show that women that I still ain't afraid of hard work.
