A true story. Summer 1970 in a small village outside a medium sized city in southern Germany. I am 22 years old, serving in the US Army. I live on the local German economy in the city with my wife and daughter.
Our friends (a young couple with a baby) live in the village. Visiting is a high school buddy of the husband. He is upper middle class, from SoCal. He is on an extended vacation in Europe. He has a new Land Rover, btw.
But the visitor is at the end of his funds. Needs to get a job. He gets a job in construction, carrying buckets of cement from the ground floor, up to the 2nd and 3rd floors, under construction.
He is living with the couple in the village. When he comes home the first few days he is exhausted. Possibly never worked so hard, in his life.
So the three of us guys chat, and drink German beer together. I ask him one night: "why don't they use a beam and pulley, the same way they move furniture upstairs?" He says he will ask his co-workers.
Next night, he returns with the answer from his German co-workers: They tell him they do it the same way they always have. If they used the pulley, somebody would not have a job.
I don't know what happened to him. The other guy eventually completed his MS in Geology. His wife completed her MEd and became a high ranking educator. Me, I finished my business college education, and wrote a thesis on the German economy--East and West. And had a 20 year career, including international business responsibilities.
Europeans are not as willing to take risks, as Americans. We are mainly from their stock, but the boldest came to America, and the risk averse remained there. (To a certain extent the same model applied to the trek across our continent, btw)
MORAL OF THE STORY for Americans: The Brits that manned up and voted Exit are like our ancestors, who risked it all sailing across hostile seas, to see if they could make better lives.
So Man the Eff up !!
