Apprentice

When I was very young, my grandparents apprenticed me to a baker who already had far too many apprentices, but he was kind-hearted and took me in anyway. I spent a year and a half as his apprentice and learned quite a bit about basic baking.

But then an herbal apothecary had an opening for an apprentice. Since my grandfather had been an herbal apothecary before he retired, and he felt I was more strongly attracted to herbs than breads, he switched my apprenticeship over.

In some ways, I wish I’d stayed a baker because I still enjoy baking a lot – and it offers better employability in the US. Had I been a Master Baker before I came to the US, employment would have been much easier.

On the other hand, arriving in the US a Master Herbal Apothecary meant I was totally unemployable and had to completely redo my education. This allowed me to pursue my love of fairytales and I earned a Ph.D. in Fairytales – a totally enjoyable degree that limited my employability even further.

I kept up my skills and guild membership for the herbs, and expanded my mastery to other areas of herbalism, and have used those skills to work as a consultant for various doctors.

Many people have asked if I will take on an apprentice of my own. As a master, I am obligated at some point to take on another apprentice or two and pass on the knowledge I have gained.

While I’m not seeking an apprentice via the internet (how chancey is that anyway?), I have reached a point where I have space in both my home and lifestyle to allow another apprentice in. The apprentice would have to live with me because much of the knowledge and work of being an herbalist can’t be imparted in a classroom setting – it will involve hands-on work, field trips that are timed according to the plant’s schedules and not people’s, and concocting that can and will take hours or even days – most of which is simply supervisory but the potions can’t be left alone for even a moment. My apprentice must be willing to spend 2 years of their life as my apprentice, but they will leave with all the skills of a journeyman and a good start towards becoming a master.

Plus, as I have a hefty collection of animals living about the place, my apprentice must be healthy and not allergic to cats, dogs, ferrets, rabbits, foxes, turtles, rats, tarantulas, possums, ducks, toads, and whatever other critter appears. Part of the fee charged for becoming an apprentice will be applied to room and board. It’s not cheap, getting these skills. My grandfather paid my master 300DM a month to teach me – and that was in the 40’s.

And it’s also a surprisingly hard one to fill – after all, the apprentice will be taking 2 years of their life from all other things to devote to this and will need the apprenticeship fees as well. There is no working part time on the side to pay it off because they won’t have time to work anywhere else. Unless I can find a high school graduate who is either wealthy enough to spend 2 years on this before heading off to college or whose parents are willing to pay the fees, I probably won’t get an apprentice. At least not anytime soon.

Ideally, I do want an apprentice fresh out of high school.

I know there are older people, in college or in their 30’s and 40’s, who want to learn it, but they have families, established lives and can’t take off the 2 years to do this.

When I offered apprenticeships part time, where they lived near and worked another job, the apprenticeship never got finished. They miss important harvests because they have a test at school or the baby’s sick or their boss won’t let them have the time off. They can’t sit through an entire preparation from beginning to end because they have to take their child to football practice or their boss won’t let them have the time off or their spouse wants them home.

The only apprentices who finished were the live-in ones who devoted their full time to learning, so that’s what I’m looking for.

And teaching someone my age? Retired and in their 60’s? Too few people my age are healthy enough to withstand the rigors of the apprenticeship training. And those few who can do it? They might not live long enough to complete their journeyman years and vecome a master so they can pass the knowledge along. I know it sounds ageist of me to say this, but it isn’t efficient or economical to teach someone who, by their advacned age, probably won’t live long enough teach it in turn. For those people, I’d teach a scaled down version for personal enjoyment and use, but not the whole enchilada.