Growing up in a coal company town, I remember only one independent contractor, Caledonia. He was the butt of many jokes, at least by the pre-teenage boys because he cleaned out outdoor toilets. Until the early 60's most of the company houses were for coalminers and while they had indoor water, had no toilets. Late at night, Caledonia would go about his regular schedule pumping out toilets and carrying away the results to deposit in pits in the mountains.

I think of Caledonia because he reminds me of Donald J Trump. He cleaned up big messes left by others. Few people with the capability of running a profitable business, alone, without assistance from the community existed but the one that did got scorn and jokes for his enterprise. Most proper, upstanding people did not wish to socialize with him or even acknowledge his contribution to our community.

I met him once and was quite surprised to find a nice, intelligent person that had accepted that in doing his job, he would be somewhat of an outcast. Even though he was a black man and almost all black workers had outdoor toilets, they shunned him as well as the management people that lived on the hill and enjoyed their porcelain appliances. I always thought that there were lessons to be learned from Caledonia and now I see him reincarnated as Donald Trump.