Ode to Mike Rowe

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir in saying this, but I love this man. The boys, being the dirt-mongers that they are, think Mike Rowe is the king. If allowed they would spend days in front of the TV watching every episode of Dirty Jobs. I am constantly attacked for not TiVo'ing the show - my only defense is, there's so darn many episodes, it fills up the entire server and knocks everything else off!

I grew up in a world where men got their hands dirty. My dad built the house I was raised in, and he kept it up in the most perfect condition the entire time he lived there. My grandfather was a forest ranger, bobsledder, quite a number of things - and he too knew how to roll up his sleeves and get filthy when something needed to get done (you can't fight a forest fire and stay clean, you know). Husband knows how to work hard outside - witness the ongoing fight between us and the backyard - but both of us have day jobs that involve air conditioning (and, in Husband's case, suits, ties, blue blazers and the rest).

So I love that Mike Rowe has devoted so much time, energy and sweat to showing all of us - and especially our kids - what it's like to get dirty for a living. None of us get to enjoy the air conditioning, the restaurants, the cars, the roads, the plumbing - none of it - without the people he features. I want my boys to have well-educated, erudite heroes, but I also want them to have sweaty, dirty ones, too.