Never worked and never will

It’s back-to-school time again.

The buses roll along dusty country roads.First-day pictures appear everywhere—little children stand on porches with backpacks almost as big as they are, holding signs announcing a new grade, while mothers and grandmothers wonder how another summer disappeared so quickly.

And every year at about this time, some part of me goes back to school, too.

This year, I found myself remembering a story I first read when I was probably seven or eight years old. It was called “Never Worked and Never Will,” by Margaret Wise Brown—the same Margaret Wise Brown who wrote Goodnight Moon.

I had no idea who she was then. I only knew I loved that story.
It was about an old woodcarver named Jim Bailey who made wooden ducks and wild geese. Above the door of his shop hung a sign:

NEVER WORKED AND NEVER WILL.

That sign puzzled people because Jim Bailey worked all day. He carved and painted and made beautiful things with his hands. Children watched him and wondered how a man who worked so hard could possibly claim that he had never worked a day in his life.
Eventually, some of the children understood his secret.
He loved what he was doing so much that, to him, it did not feel like work.
You can read Margaret Wise Brown’s story here: Never Worked and Never Will⁠

That little story caught my imagination in a way I could never have explained at seven years old.

I remember choosing it when our class was asked to speak at a PTA program for our parents. We were supposed to tell about a book or story we especially enjoyed about school.

I chose Never Worked and Never Will.
Unfortunately, when it was my turn to speak, I also chose to giggle.
I have a vague memory that a boy nearby started it, and apparently I was highly susceptible to contagious laughter that evening. My mother was not amused. To the best of my recollection, that may have been my first and last episode as a public giggler
But I never forgot the story. 

Many years later, when I was asked to say a few words at my first retirement party, I remembered that old woodcarver again.
By then I had spent years in a classroom. Teaching had certainly required effort. There had been long days, papers and plans, meetings, problems to solve, children to worry about, lessons to invent, and more work brought home than I could ever count.
But I had loved it.

And I realized that somehow I had managed to live the life that had appealed so deeply to that little girl reading about Jim Bailey.
I ended my retirement remarks by remembering his sign.
After all those years of teaching, I could say that I had been fortunate enough to spend my working life doing something I loved.
So, in Jim Bailey’s sense of the words, I have never worked.
And since that happened to be my retirement day, I supposed I never will.
I still love that idea.

Retirement and age have changed what I am able to do, and these days accomplishments are considerably smaller than they once were. But I think the old lesson still holds.

There is something wonderful about finding the things that make us lose track of the distinction between work and pleasure—the things we make, teach, write, grow, mend, cook, crochet, arrange, learn, or share simply because something inside us comes alive while we are doing them.

Maybe that is why, after all these years, I still remember an old man carving wooden ducks in a story from an elementary-school reader.
He knew something worth learning very young:

A good life is not necessarily a life without effort.

Sometimes we live a life filled with endeavors that we love. For me, teaching proved to be just that.
So I never worked and I never will!

For those of you who are lucky enough to be headed back to school or hugging a child who’s looking forward to a day in the classroom, have a great year.