T-Bone Slim, born on this day in 1880, was an IWW member, working class songwriter, and author. Due to his popular, labor themed tunes, Slim was dubbed the "laureate of the logging camps".
Born Matti Valentin Huhta to Finnish immigrant parents in Ashtabula, Ohio, Slim became an itinerant worker after leaving his wife and family in 1912. It isn't known when Slim became a Wobbly, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), but he first appeared in the IWW's press in the 1920 edition of the IWW Songbook.
Slim became one of the IWW's most famous writers during the 1920s and 30s, and many people would buy the "Industrial Worker" just to read his articles - one ad from the paper read "there's a lot more in Industrial Solidarity and Industrial Worker than T-Bone Slim's columns".
Slim did not presume his working-class readership to be unintelligent people, making use of complex wordplay and experimental writing techniques, playing with ambiguity, satire and surrealism.
Slim was also well-known for his songs, such as the "Lumberjack's Prayer", a parody of the Lord's Prayer about the poor quality of food available for the working class, and "The Popular Wobbly", which experienced a revival among civil rights activists during the 1960s.
In spite of his renown in radical circles during his lifetime, many details of Slim's life remain unclear. During the mid-1930s, he settled in New York City, where he worked as a barge captain on the docks.
In May 1942, Slim's body was found in the East River. His cause of death remains unknown and has been subject to speculation. Following his death, Slim largely faded into obscurity, especially compared to more famous IWW-associated writers such as Joe Hill.
Slim's songs have been preserved, however, re-published in editions of the Little Red Songbook and covered by musicians such as Pete Seeger, Utah Phillips, and his own great-grandnephew, John Westmoreland.
Until recently, there was thought to be no surviving photographs of Slim, however, in 2019 two photos were discovered and published by Working Class History in a Newberry Library collection.
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It's a BS in Physics. I don't think it's very useful unless you want to design new ways to blow people up, and a lot of the scientific work requires a doctorate, and it's pretty competitive and tbh I'm just not really that interested in it anymore. When I was younger I bought into the whole, "Technology will solve everyone's problems" stuff. Pretty much the only thing I've thought about doing with it is teaching, which I guess has kinda been my
planvague idea before but I don't have the qualifications and don't really have a plan on how to get them, and like I said I don't really have confidence in things working out so I'm hesitant to invest in anything uncertain.Physics is super useful though, i am constantly using my 100-200 level physics knowledge to be a better cook than the others i work with
Damn, you're me in 2012. Same BS in physics, graduated, didn't know what i wanted to do anymore. Luckily stumbled into programming and i love doing that.
I dabbled in the past but I found it frustrating. Moments where I realized I'd taken the wrong approach and had to scrap a bunch of work, and the tedium of getting everything formatted right discouraged me, and I guess at the time I found a sort of satisfaction in physical labor because it made sense what I was doing and why and I could make consistent progress. Now that I've done that shit for years, I could appreciate something more intellectually stimulating like that. I don't know whether I'd be able to find a job though.
I think you can leverage that in different ways... At the very least, a physics degree shows you're smart and probably good at math which you can get a lot of mileage out of with random office jobs.
I was able to get into a field unrelated to my degree by working as a temp to get my foot in the door, might be something to consider if you're in an area with temp agencies that supply white collar type workers. Sometimes you are filling in for someone on medical leave or whatever, but a lot of these places like to hire temps because it's lower risk. Once you're in, fake it til you make it! One job leads to another and you might find something you really like. You're still using your degree even if it's not "physics." Analytical thinking, problem solving, etc are things you refined in the process of getting your degree, and those are valuable skills anywhere.
You can do this!