{"id":46,"date":"2008-02-19T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=46"},"modified":"2025-03-02T19:37:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T19:37:58","slug":"my-granite-reminder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/my-granite-reminder\/","title":{"rendered":"My Granite Reminder"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Like a lot of writ\u00aders, I keep a stone on my desk to use as a paper\u00adweight. But mine has a spe\u00adcial mean\u00ading to me because it\u2019s a chunk of gran\u00adite from one of the quar\u00adries my grand\u00adfa\u00adther and great-grand\u00adfa\u00adther worked, and every time I look at it, I\u2019m remind\u00aded of how far the Orcutts have come.<\/p>\n

Last sum\u00admer, while work\u00ading on a sto\u00adry that takes place off the coast of Maine, I spent some time on the island my fam\u00adi\u00adly comes from: Vinal\u00adhaven<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tool\u00ading around the island in a friend\u2019s pick\u00adup truck, I vis\u00adit\u00aded the places my ances\u00adtors had lived and worked\u2014especially the gran\u00adite quar\u00adries. In the ear\u00adly 1900s, gran\u00adite from Vinal\u00adhaven was used for a lot of impor\u00adtant build\u00adings in the North\u00adeast, includ\u00ading the Cathe\u00addral of St. John the Divine in New York City. My great-grand\u00adfa\u00adther was part of the small crew that cut and shaped the columns for that impres\u00adsive struc\u00adture.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

My grand\u00adfa\u00adther also cut gran\u00adite for build\u00adings, but he did some\u00adthing else that I find just as impres\u00adsive, and that\u2019s cut\u00adting paving block. In those days, many of the streets in Boston and New York were still cob\u00adble\u00adstone, which meant that some\u00adbody had to cut those uni\u00adform-sized blocks.<\/p>\n

Accord\u00ading to my uncle Har\u00adris, my grand\u00adfa\u00adther made 2 cents for each block. \u201cThis was dur\u00ading the Depres\u00adsion you see,\u201d Har\u00adris said. \u201cHe\u2019d bring home forty, fifty dol\u00adlars a week. Do the math. That\u2019s two thou\u00adsand to twen\u00adty-five hun\u00addred stones a week. And if they weren\u2019t per\u00adfect, he did\u00adn\u2019t get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where am I going with this entry, you ask? What\u2019s my point?<\/p>\n

My point is this:<\/p>\n

Every time I sit down at my com\u00adput\u00ader and get to use my brain to make a liv\u00ading, I pick up my gran\u00adite paper\u00adweight, feel its rough\u00adness and its heft, and think about the hard work my ances\u00adtors did that enabled me to be where I am today. Because they worked their ass\u00ades off cut\u00adting stone, I\u2019m able to indulge in cre\u00adative pur\u00adsuits. I like to think they\u2019d want this, that they\u2019d want me to do what I loved instead of just work\u00ading to sur\u00advive.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m incred\u00adi\u00adbly proud of them and grate\u00adful for the sac\u00adri\u00adfices they made.<\/p>\n

The suc\u00adcess I seek with my writ\u00ading isn\u2019t just for myself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a lot of writ\u00aders, I keep a stone on my desk to use as a paper\u00adweight. But mine has a spe\u00adcial mean\u00ading to me\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9214,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/9214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}