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Speaker 1: On the Job is brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals as a leading staffing provider that employs

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Speaker 1: nearly six hundred thousand people annually across more than eight

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Speaker 1: hundred franchise locations in the US, Canada, and South Africa.

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Speaker 1: Our long term goal is at the heart of our

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Speaker 1: company's mission to help as many people as possible find

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Speaker 1: good jobs. By helping as many clients as possible find

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Speaker 1: good people. It takes more than just online searches to

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Speaker 1: land a job. It takes real people who will identify

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Speaker 1: your talents, a person invested in your success. Express Employment

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Speaker 1: Professionals understands what it takes to land a new position

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Speaker 1: at a top employer or start a new career in

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Speaker 1: today's job market. Express Noose Jobs, Get to no Express,

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Speaker 1: Go to expresspros dot com. Welcome to on the Job.

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Speaker 1: This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their

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Speaker 1: professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's

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Speaker 1: breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the

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Speaker 1: reins in a family business, forging your own path with

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Speaker 1: a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something

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Speaker 1: you'd never before even considered. Today reporter Otis Gray brings

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Speaker 1: us a story about a craft that is no longer

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Speaker 1: as needed as it once was, and a man whose

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Speaker 1: job is to make sure it's not forgotten. Jim Ellis

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Speaker 1: lives on Cape Cod, and with the help of a

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Speaker 1: very unlikely apprentice, he works to pass along an occupation

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Speaker 1: that was once woven into the fabric of our society

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Speaker 1: over to you, Otis. I don't know, just that I

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Speaker 1: think we're in too much of a hearty these days.

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Speaker 1: Everything's too simple. They got to remember how the old

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Speaker 1: time has got us to this point. It wasn't for them,

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Speaker 1: we wouldn't be here. So I drove out to Barnstable, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: on Cape Cod to meet a guy named Jim Ellis.

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Speaker 1: He lives in this old, historic looking house. There's a

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Speaker 1: plaque outside that says house of Ellis right in the porch,

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Speaker 1: which is a family name here dating all the way

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Speaker 1: back to the Mayflower. And when I walked into Jim's kitchen,

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Speaker 1: he was sitting next to a pair of crutches and

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Speaker 1: he was in a lot of pain. It's just shop

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Speaker 1: banks tcies have had both rotator cuffs. We paid over

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Speaker 1: the years, and I think I tore another one for

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Speaker 1: the second time. But if I haven't looked at tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll see what happens in his line

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Speaker 1: of work. A torn rotator cuff makes things difficult and

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Speaker 1: really really hard. But you can laugh about it. Hey,

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Speaker 1: what else you gonna do? See they laugh or drink beer.

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Speaker 1: That's cheaper than laugh. Not an ideal injury. Because Jim

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Speaker 1: Ellis is a blacksmith. Is the rotator cuff a result

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Speaker 1: of your work blacksmithing? I don't know. I think age

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Speaker 1: has a lot to do with it. You just heard

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Speaker 1: eighty one that week, and in a world of fast moving,

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Speaker 1: high tech jobs, some that didn't even exist thirty years ago.

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Speaker 1: Jim is a third generation blacksmith. It picked it up

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Speaker 1: from my father, and he got it from my uncle,

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Speaker 1: and my uncle got it from mister Kent, who started

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Speaker 1: hearing a village in about eighteen eighty eight. I think

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Speaker 1: in that area and even at eighty one, Jim still

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Speaker 1: swinging a hammer any day that he can still at

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Speaker 1: it one hundred and eleven years in the same village,

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Speaker 1: doing the same job, in the same family. I just

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Speaker 1: I love it. I love the old history. I'd try

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Speaker 1: to keep it going so today. With Jim shoulder on

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Speaker 1: the mend, we follow his story as he strives to

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Speaker 1: pass along a craft from another time. Under a spreading

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Speaker 1: chutnut tree, the fellows smithy stands. The smith a mighty

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Speaker 1: man as he but large and sinewy heads, and the

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Speaker 1: muscles on those brawny arms are as strong as iron bands.

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Speaker 1: His hair is crisp and black and long. His face

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Speaker 1: is like the tan. His brow is wet with honest sweat.

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Speaker 1: He earns whatever he can, and he can look the

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Speaker 1: whole world in the face, for he owe. It's not

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Speaker 1: any man. That's Jim reciting the Village Blacksmith, a poem

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Speaker 1: written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in eighteen forty. Jim has

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Speaker 1: this poem hanging on the wall in his shop. This

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Speaker 1: is where I first met Jim. I was driving around

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Speaker 1: the cape when I saw a brick building on the

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Speaker 1: side of the road with a sign outside that said

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Speaker 1: Blacksmith right in the driveway. I pulled over and I

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Speaker 1: walked in to find Jim amongst the sea of iron

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Speaker 1: tools and hooks and chandeliers, iron everything hanging from the

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Speaker 1: wa walls, ceiling, poking out of shelves and buckets, and

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Speaker 1: talked against the back wall was Jim sitting at a forge,

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Speaker 1: a glowing furnace powered by a hand crank where he

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Speaker 1: heats his iron up until it glows red so he

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Speaker 1: can bend it and hammer it into whatever shape he wants.

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Speaker 1: Like walking through kind of a day. What your tasks are,

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Speaker 1: what you do in the shop, everything, Well, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of a what I like about it. You never know

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Speaker 1: what's gonna do. I mean, people bring things into bbpaid

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Speaker 1: from weather veins to any kind of antique stands, and

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Speaker 1: I've even got an antique picture frames and slays. Some

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Speaker 1: stuff very intricate, like little wall hooks and plant hangers,

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Speaker 1: And the other day I had to make a U

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Speaker 1: shaped piece of iron to hold a sign of a

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Speaker 1: guy wanted and others Just a bang bang, bend it

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Speaker 1: and put a hook on it, and you're all done.

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Speaker 1: Just bending, heating up metal and bending it, shaping it.

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Speaker 1: What a lot of us think about blacksmithing, We picture

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Speaker 1: a burly guy at an anvil pounding away on a

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Speaker 1: hot piece of metal. You might be pick suring a

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Speaker 1: sword or medieval times, and that's part of it. Shaping

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Speaker 1: a square piece of iron into something usable, like a

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Speaker 1: blade or a hook to hang things. But what a

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Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize is this is how things

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Speaker 1: were originally welded, right up until the nineteen hundreds. Welding

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Speaker 1: as in taking two pieces of metal, getting them hot

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Speaker 1: enough so that they melt, and joining them together. The

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Speaker 1: hotter it is easier it is to move. A good

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Speaker 1: welding heat is twenty eight hundred degrees fahrenheit. When the

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Speaker 1: iron goes past that cherry red color to a bright

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Speaker 1: light yellow, the iron melts and literally begins to move.

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Speaker 1: With electric and gas welders we have today, that kind

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Speaker 1: of heat comes pretty easy. How years ago they used

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Speaker 1: to have to bring it up to that heat. That's

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Speaker 1: how they did the welding. They didn't have electricity, they

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Speaker 1: didn't have welding gases. They welded in the fire, so

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Speaker 1: you got to get the irond right to that melting

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Speaker 1: point and then hammer it together. By its nature, all

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Speaker 1: of Jim's work looks old fashioned. The way things used

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Speaker 1: to be made is not perfect and smooth like most

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Speaker 1: metal objects we see today. Most of the things around

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Speaker 1: his shop have a rougher quality to it, and that's

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Speaker 1: the way he likes it. A lot of people don't

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Speaker 1: like to leave hamma mix. I love hammams. Matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: sometimes I used this special hammer to make different mix

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Speaker 1: in it. Why do you love the hammer mark, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. It just shows that it's a handhammered, not

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Speaker 1: gunning a machine. Character. Blacksmithing is a job that's part

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Speaker 1: of our cultural lexicon. Everyone knows what the job is,

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Speaker 1: even though most people today don't know a blacksmith. Even

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, long after blacksmithing had faded from

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Speaker 1: its aday, it's still topped the charts in the song

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Speaker 1: blacksmith Blues by lam Morse in nineteen fifty two. That's

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Speaker 1: because blacksmiths are a huge part of our human story.

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Speaker 1: The blacksmith was pivotal in every village, town, and city

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Speaker 1: dating back almost a thousand years ago when humans began

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Speaker 1: successfully making iron tools, They fixed armor and made weapons,

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Speaker 1: making them vital to conquest. They made farming equipment, axles

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Speaker 1: for wagons. They were quite literally what held society together.

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Speaker 1: Blacksmithing remained a completely necessary job right up until the

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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, but with the invention of bigger machines, affordable

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Speaker 1: tractors for farmers and Fords modelty car to replace the

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Speaker 1: horse and buggy. Blacksmiths quickly found their profession obsolete at

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Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century. Afterwards, blacksmiths specialized in

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Speaker 1: craft goods, but much of the profession died away during

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Speaker 1: the depression and the years following. The craft itself made

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Speaker 1: a huge resurgence during the nineteen seventies as folks became

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Speaker 1: interested in its history and its application to modern sculpture

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Speaker 1: and crafts, but not many people do it as a

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Speaker 1: full time job like the old days. Jim is not

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Speaker 1: an exception. Well, I try to make enough to keep

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Speaker 1: the shop going, but now it's pretty hard to make

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Speaker 1: a living at it the way I'm doing it, But

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Speaker 1: being retired, I don't I don't have to plan on

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Speaker 1: it for my income, but I do have to break

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Speaker 1: even at least In another life, Jim worked on nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons in the military, and it was a mechanic until

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Speaker 1: he broke his back in a truck accident in the seventies.

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Speaker 1: Now that he's technically retired, he runs a shop more

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Speaker 1: like a museum than anything. Although I always had the

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Speaker 1: fire going, I always had a piece of iron in

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Speaker 1: the fire. People like to see thee you know, the

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Speaker 1: metal being forged, and especially kids like to see it

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Speaker 1: put in the water and sizzle and all that. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're just just trying to keep the interested in blacksmithing.

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Speaker 1: How many more years do you think you're having you

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Speaker 1: for blacksmithing? Ah, well, I'll keep that as long as

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Speaker 1: I can. So now we're back where we started with

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Speaker 1: Jim Shoulders. He can sometimes do two hours a day

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Speaker 1: before he's cashed out. But if you ask Jim if

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Speaker 1: he's worried that all his knowledge of tools and blacksmithings

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Speaker 1: stop with him, he'll tell you not at all. Why

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Speaker 1: because he's got a pretty unlikely protege to carry on

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Speaker 1: the tradition. I guess. So. Yeah. Yeah. My name is

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Speaker 1: Norah Bourbon and I full time I'm a metal engraver

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Speaker 1: and part time blacksmith. I say unlikely because Nora is

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Speaker 1: five two skinny and prefers to forge an address. Not

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Speaker 1: the classic image you have in your head when you

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Speaker 1: think of a blacksmith. Nope, nope, I'm very petite, little

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Speaker 1: little lady. Usually it's the big, burly dude. Do you

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Speaker 1: think other people find it weird that you do something

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Speaker 1: like blacksmithing. I think it surprises a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: considering more of my height and just how scrawny I look.

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Speaker 1: But I think people really respect it and they think

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Speaker 1: it's very interesting what I do. Norah has been learning

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Speaker 1: from Jim for about three years now, and she enjoys

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Speaker 1: not fitting into the stereotypical image of a blacksmith, being

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Speaker 1: able to prove maybe to young kids, like it is

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Speaker 1: really nice to show that as an inspiration to younger

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Speaker 1: people or smaller people, that anyone can do this trade.

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Speaker 1: Even though you can swing an eight pound sledgehammer. You

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Speaker 1: don't have to be a big person that goes to

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Speaker 1: Jim all the time or something like that. This in

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Speaker 1: particular shows that you really anyone can do anything that

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Speaker 1: they put their mind to. Yeah, she's doing wonderful. Yeah

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Speaker 1: she loves it. I was going to smile on her face.

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Speaker 1: I've learned so much from Jim over the last just

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Speaker 1: a couple of years, and I've slowly done a little

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Speaker 1: bit on my own here and there throughout this time,

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Speaker 1: this whole time. But I like the old process. I

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Speaker 1: like the simple ways, and I even make soap from

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Speaker 1: scratch and I grow vegetables and I grow things in

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Speaker 1: the garden. Your pretty old fashioned. Yeah, yeah, very we'll

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Speaker 1: get back to the story in a second. First, a

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Speaker 1: word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic, takes

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Speaker 1: pride in a job well done, sweats over the details.

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Speaker 1: This is you. But to get an honest day's work,

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Speaker 1: you need a response. You need a callback, You need

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Speaker 1: a job. Express Employment Professionals can help because we understand

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Speaker 1: what it takes to get a job. It takes more

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Speaker 1: than just online searches to land a job. It takes

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Speaker 1: someone who will identify your talents, a person invested in

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Speaker 1: your success. At Express, we can even complete your application

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Speaker 1: with you over the phone, will prepare you for interviews,

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Speaker 1: and will connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll

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Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job. At Express.

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Speaker 1: We can put you to work with companies of all

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Speaker 1: sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office.

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Speaker 1: Express Nose Jobs you get to no Express. Find your

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Speaker 1: location at Express pros dot com or on the Express

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Speaker 1: Jobs app. And now back to our story. I love

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Speaker 1: her renaissance spirit. Let's just let's do things the old way.

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Speaker 1: That's it. Uh, I don't know It's just that I

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Speaker 1: think we're in too much of a hurry these days.

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Speaker 1: Everything's too simple. He got to sought out, do it right,

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Speaker 1: do it once, it'll last. I gotta remember how the

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Speaker 1: old time has got us to this point. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: for them, we wouldn't be here toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing away

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Speaker 1: through life. He goes each morning some work began, Each

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Speaker 1: evening sees it clothes, something attempted, something done, has earned

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Speaker 1: him a night's repose. Thanks thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

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Speaker 1: for the lessons thou hast taught. Thou set the flaming

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Speaker 1: forge of life. Our fortunes must be wrought thus on

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Speaker 1: a sounding ample shaped each burning deep in thought. Being

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Speaker 1: in gym shop, I couldn't help thinking about something I

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Speaker 1: picked up as a job when I was in college,

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Speaker 1: sign painting. I learned typography and painted signs by hand

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Speaker 1: for businesses around Providence, Rhode Island, where I went to school.

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Speaker 1: It was a really tough thing to be even okay at.

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Speaker 1: Like blacksmithing, sign painting used to be a very necessary

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Speaker 1: job in society before computers and vinyl printing. Sign painters

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Speaker 1: would design storefronts, scale the sides of buildings and paint mammoth,

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Speaker 1: advertisements and logos. It was messy, tedious, hard work, and

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Speaker 1: today it might seem like a creative passion, but years

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Speaker 1: back it was a real, vital job that would feed families.

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Speaker 1: It taught me patience, something I was born lacking a

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Speaker 1: little bit. And as I felt the brush slowly glide

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Speaker 1: over glass or wood, knowing all the practice I had

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Speaker 1: done before led up to this one mark I had

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Speaker 1: to do in one stroke, there was a sense of

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Speaker 1: satisfaction and confidence that I didn't know before. It's that

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Speaker 1: feeling you get when you've done something right and you

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Speaker 1: know you didn't take any shortcuts. Today you can drive

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Speaker 1: around and see the remnants of old sign work, faded

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Speaker 1: letters wearing away on the side of brick buildings like ghosts,

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Speaker 1: evidence of something from long ago. And the more I painted,

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Speaker 1: the more I appreciated those disappearing letters, something undeniably human,

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Speaker 1: like a fingerprint, a record of how far we've come

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Speaker 1: hammer marks. If learning an old job like that did

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Speaker 1: anything for me, it was that it helped me appreciate time.

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Speaker 1: For thirty five year old Nora and blacksmith thing, it's

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Speaker 1: the same I feel that I need to hold on

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Speaker 1: to as much knowledge as I can so that it

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Speaker 1: can't it can stay stick around and doesn't escape. I know,

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Speaker 1: I realize how hard the old type has worked. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm listening to my mother how she grew

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Speaker 1: up on a farm and the things they had to

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Speaker 1: do before she went to school, walked to school and

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Speaker 1: riding horses, and they worked really, really hard. How hard

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Speaker 1: it was to put an eye and tire on a

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Speaker 1: wagon wheel, hard it was to make a wagon wheel,

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Speaker 1: all these things. It's just I don't know. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you know that, I think it helps you get

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Speaker 1: along in today's world, knowing what other people went through

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Speaker 1: so you can be where you are. They helped you

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Speaker 1: get there. Jim Ellis's skills and knowledge are part of

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Speaker 1: our collective DNA as humans, and he plays a vital

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Speaker 1: role in making sure that we don't forget. Jim is

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Speaker 1: a craftsman. That's the job he's passing on to Nora.

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Speaker 1: But more than that, to me, I think they're both

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Speaker 1: in the business of gratitude, of passing along and appreciation.

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Speaker 1: What do you think the future of blacksmith thing looks like.

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's comp your alfa a long time.

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Speaker 1: Yet there's a lot of young people really into it,

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Speaker 1: and so yeah, I think it's comp your alf for

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Speaker 1: a while. I can't see a cornaway surely. Yeah, we'll

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Speaker 1: keep keep it alive for on the Job. I'm Otus Gray.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and see you next time. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to On the Job. Brought to you by Express

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Speaker 1: Employment Professionals. Find out more at expresspros dot com. This

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Speaker 1: season of On the Job is produced by Audiation and

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Speaker 1: dread Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our

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Speaker 1: producer is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt

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Speaker 1: Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,

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Speaker 1: please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For

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Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Audiation