He was sitting in the shadows of Nashville in front of a small building. He was slim and appeared as if he was lacking a few good meals. I asked, "Are you homeless?" He laughed, "Me, no... I have a farm in Franklin County. The man who owns this building hired me to gut it, so I am staying here while I do the work." I looked inside and saw that the floor was covered in wood, glass and insulation. It didn't exactly look like somewhere that I would call home for any period of time.
The man sitting on the front sidewalk of the 1920's structure that had been added onto time and time again reminded me of a photo that would have been published in an old LIFE magazine. A picture of someone who works and works hard at what he does.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
LIFE was a magazine that ran weekly from 1883 to 1972, published initially as a humor and general interest magazine. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936, so that he could acquire the rights to its name, and shifted it to a role as a weekly news magazine with a strong emphasis on photojournalism. LIFE was published weekly until 1972 as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 to 2002.
I miss seeing LIFE magazine on the shelves of bookstores today.