Darkness at noon.

They say the darkest hour is just before dawn. Since the recession officially ended two years ago, night must now last nigh unto noon. The stock market is creeping up, but mills and factories keep shutting down. Maybe they're the economic equivalent of those feeble old folk who somehow manage to postpone their passing past the holidays, only to breathe their last in the first of a new year.

These are dark times for manufacturing, especially for those whose hands give heart to its machines. These jobs, which to some might seem mean, have provided both the means for and meaning to millions of lives. Their loss is catastrophic.

William Faulkner once wrote, "You can't eat for eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours a day--all you can do for eight hours a day is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy." But if you really want to see how miserable a man can be, take away his work. A job is much more than a paycheck. It is the way many of us define who we are and what we want to be.

That sentiment, I admit, sounds suspiciously bourgeois, a word that had it ever been uttered in the neighborhood where I grew up would have drawn a blank stare or maybe been mistaken as French for "bullshit"--especially in this context. For most working-class people, work is anything but romantic: It is hard, often boring, at times brutal, even dangerous. And, as recent events have shown, there's no future in it for many.

That was driven home to me while talking to some of my cousins when we gathered for a relative's funeral. The topic turned to work. While my brother and I had gone to Chapel Hill, they had gone to Vietnam or stayed in Burlington, where they eked out a living in the mills. There was little they could relate to in my career as a journalist or Richard's as a city recreation director. But they hung on every word as one described his efforts to go on permanent disability.

It struck me that, as twisted as it might seem, their only real security lay in disability. Without it, they faced an uncertain future of dragging worn-out bodies to jobs that themselves were increasingly at risk. Unlike me--the professional observer--they saw their world for the reality it was. They could not afford the luxury of dreams.

This, I realize, sounds dour, and I'm sure my cousins don't see their lives in such a dreary light. As working people must be, they're tough. I, on the other hand, am angry that they and so many like them are victims of forces that are beyond their control or even their comprehension. Like our leaders, I don't have the answers. But I can't help but take it personally.

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