One of the aspects of “In the Shining Mountains” that I find interesting is that Dave doesn't really discuss his daily life much. We don't learn about his family, or his friends, or his work - with the exception of quitting his jobs, which is a recurring theme.
It is a shame that it's necessary to quit one's employment in order to undertake any real adventuring in this world. This restriction encourages people to spend years working without taking time off to enjoy and explore the world around them. Luckily, Dave did not have this reluctance and kept his eye clearly on his goal - get enough of a bankroll to enable his further adventures.
In fact, by the second page of the book Dave has already quit one job - at a seedy motel on Colfax in Denver.
"[The manager] stayed on my back, and I started to get mad. Finally, about the fifth time, he came down a little in his tone and told me gently that he thought I had a problem with my attitude and wondered what it was. I told him that his motel made me feel like puking. He told me I was fired.
I was happy. That was the way any good mountain man would have handled it." (pb 4)
After the motel he moves on to a night shift doing paperwork at the hospital, another pouring concrete for bridge foundations, and one building swimming pools for "rich people in the suburbs" back in Minnesota. Each one of these positions follows a trajectory ending in quitting when the siren song of the wilderness or his own tolerance for bullshit outweighs the benefits of one more paycheck.
"One bright spring morning at the pits, I looked around and noticed that the snow was almost all melted, the birds were singing in full, and the sun was shining down out of a big blue sky full of warmth and freedom. I put my hammer down, walked up to the boss's younger brother, and told him I thought he was full of shit. I had been carrying that for five months. He didn't say anything, he just stared. The birds were singing away. I picked up my tools and walked off the job." (pb 32)
In keeping with this theme, last week I submitted my resignation and will be done on this Friday, January 18th. The logistics of this are complicated and uninteresting but the catharsis will be recognizable by all. I held this job for six years and made many friends that I will miss, so I did not tell anyone they made me feel like puking on my way out. Not quite how a mountain man would handle it.
Here's to future adventures!