Let's get physical.(THE STRAGGLER)(shovels and compost heap)

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given. Usually two opposite kinds of advice are given simultaneously by two organized bodies of men; this is called politics.--In Praise of Idleness, by Bertrand Russell

THE best relief from thinking about politics, I have found, is to spend some time at the other end of the labor chain, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface. Brute physical labor may be unpleasant and ill paid, but it can be mighty therapeutic for those of us who read, write, and think for a living.

The actual matter that needs moving this day is my compost heap, a pile of rich earth and well-rotted vegetable matter shaped like one half of a paraboloid of revolution bisected along the axis by my back fence. The heap is five feet high and twelve across at the base. Some fast mental calculus gives a volume of 150 cubic feet. Soil goes about 50 lb. per cubic foot, so I am looking at close to four tons of soil to be moved from here to there.

I have no real idea whether turning over one's compost heap is an important part of good gardening practice. To tell the truth, I know next to nothing about gardening. Like many other people with sedentary occupations, though, I set myself regular physical chores to remind my body what it's for. My father used to turn over his compost heap every year, so I follow his example without inquiring into the need. It gets me out of the house for a few hours, lets me work up a virtuous sweat, and offers at least the illusion of having done something useful. And yes, thanks very much, I am fully aware of the hazards of desk-bound middle-aged folk suddenly embarking on strenuous physical tasks. I pace myself carefully, lift with my quads not my back, and spend more time leaning on the shovel contemplating my efforts and sipping iced coffee than actually shoveling.

Shovel, or spade? There is some precise denominative distinction here, like the ones between wasp and hornet, ketch and sloop, or metonymy and synecdoche--one of those too-fine partitionings of reality that I can never hold in my mind for more than a few minutes. This particular implement has a shield-shaped blade affixed to a plain long wooden shaft. I think of it to myself as an American shovel, only because the shovels I grew up with in England all had the square blade and D-shaped "wishbone" handle. My first sighting of a plain-shafted shovel was in the foreground of a photograph, reproduced in some illustrated history of aviation my father owned, showing the Wright brothers' first powered flight. The plain-shafted variety thereupon became, and has remained, an American shovel in my personal lexicon, ...