Editor's Note: Labor

On the last Saturday of every month, a few dozen people gather in a parking lot atop an extinct volcano in Portland to spend a morning pulling vines. The Weed Warriors, organized by the Friends of Mt. Tabor Park, are engaged in an ongoing battle to control invasive plants in one of the city’s largest parks. The labor is performed entirely by volunteers. Most months, my wife and I put on hiking boots and gardening gloves and trudge up the hill to join them.

Weed Warriors is the most multigenerational group I participate in. Middle and high schoolers collecting community service hours dig alongside retirees in their seventies and parents with their children. It isn’t just neighborhood residents: People come from all over the city, and sometimes beyond, to get their hands dirty together.

The work the Weed Warriors do is physically demanding. We yank English ivy and morning glory out by the roots and wind them into balls; we hack down Himalayan blackberry canes and dig out their roots; we plant vine maple and dogwood on steep, rocky inclines. It is also rewarding: In three hours we can clear a hillside of vines to reveal the indigenous plants underneath, leaving behind tall piles of slash to decay into compost. It is also endless. In twenty-six years, the Warriors have cleared only a small part of the park’s 196 acres.

In this issue, we explore not only labor, but the many things that come with it: community, solidarity, and fulfillment, as well as pain, frustration, and danger. All of these show up to some degree on the bramble-covered slopes of Mount Tabor, but, perhaps because the work we do there is voluntary, the positives always outweigh the discomfort. I hope the stories in this issue help you reflect on the balance of reward and sacrifice in the various forms of labor that make up your life.

Ben Waterhouse is Communications Director at Oregon Humanities. He supervises the organization's communications and publications efforts, including Oregon Humanities magazine, the Beyond the Margins essay series, The Detour podcast and radio show, and marketing strategy. He created the Dear Stranger letter-exchange project.

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