V5 (5 Things 1 Topic)

Grunt-work has always been an activity that I feel pride in.  I come from a blue-collar family in a blue-collar city. I put myself through school, working construction with family and friends.  My first exposure to the world of construction was at age 14.  I was assigned along with my cousins the task of helping to gut a house that was destroyed by a fire on Christmas eve.  I took my lead by watching the builders on the job site put everything they had into their work.  I saw a guy cut the tip of his finger off, pull out a soft pack of Marlboro Reds, pop the last cigarette into his mouth, place the empty cigarette pack over his bloody finger, and duct tape it tightly in order to stop the bleeding.

After that model of intensity, I just tried to emulate what looked like the toughest group of guys in metro Detroit.  I hauled garbage can after garbage can off to the dumpster.  Plaster, tile, brick, shingles, insulation, wood, ash, etc.. By the end of that first day, I was exhausted, bloody, bruised, dehydrated, and hungry.  I had no idea how well I did, and no idea that anyone was watching, but as the builders and laborers started to leave, one after another came up to me to let me know how impressed they were with the work I put in.  While I didn’t have a bloody pack of cigarettes serving as a makeshift bandage, I felt like one of them.

Then, the next day came, the pain of working muscles that I didn’t realize existed reminded me that I was a 14-year-old kid who was not quite ready for the tough-guy varsity team.  But I kept at it and several years later I received my first degree without a penny of debt, I also earned a few scars and broken bones along the way. 

The discipline that I picked up on the construction site is the same work ethic that got me through grad-school and helped me become the best philosophy professor I could be.  A life in academia doesn’t come with the same bruises and abrasions, but for me, the approach is just the same.  That discipline is the same reason I and others like me embrace the suffer fest that is rock-climbing and dirtbagging.

Recently, I heard someone say that prepping for a climb is grunt work, and I couldn’t agree more.  That got me thinking about what “grunt” means?

There are a million ways to interpret “grunt”. 

Here are five.

5 Things 1 Topic

1. Grunt: A deep short sound characteristic of a hog.  Until today, I just figured grunts were called “grunts” because they grunted when they did grunt work.  Made sense to me, lift heavy thing (e.g. garbage cans, haul bags, rocks, wood, etc…) make loud noise.  Grunts are grunts because they grunt.  
2. Grunt: A U.S. army or marine foot soldier especially in the Vietnam War.  One who does routine unglamorous work—often used attributively grunt work.  There are several origin stories for “grunt” and most start off in the US Army.  One story has the widespread use of “grunt” starting from a POG (Person Other Than Grunt) recalling army slang from the early 1900’s and referring to smelly infantrymen as grunts, which previously described those who did the physical less desirable jobs.  The description was taken as a compliment, and stuck.  A second origin story dates back to WWII, when rear-echelon units were called to be foot soldiers with little to no training. General Replacement Units – Not Trained was a description for these poor souls, and the acronym is simply GRUNT!
3. Grunt: “A term of affection used to denote that filthy, sweaty, dirt-encrusted, footsore, camouflage-painted, tired, sleepy, beautiful little son of a b*tch who has kept the wolf away from the door for over two hundred years.” – Major H.G. Duncan USMC.  Duncan spent nearly 30 years in the Marines, he wrote 12 books, and has been referred to as the Mark Twain of the Marine Corps.
4. Grunt: A dessert made by dropping biscuit dough on top of boiling berries and steaming.  How have I never heard of this, I kind of want to drop everything and make a grunt!  It’s actually made in a Dutch Oven, so this could absolutely be a camp dish on the next climbing trip.
5. I’m kind of loving the image of a grunt grunting while making a Nova Scotia blueberry grunt.  Grunt grunt grunt!

No matter how “grunt” is interpreted, there seems to be nothing, but positivity and respect fixed to the term.  I’m proud of the days attached to sweat filled shirts and scraped knuckles, from hauling gear to scraping shingles.  Grunt work is an approach to life that isn’t for everybody, but for those filthy, sweaty, dirt-encrusted, beautiful little son of a bitches who embrace it, respect abounds!

V5 5 Things 1 Topic