Merle Haggard’s work ethic

Merle Haggard is the hardest-working man in country, said Patrick Doyle in Men’s Journal. In the decade since he announced his retirement, the 74-year-old singer has released nine albums and played hundreds of concerts. “I would have liked to retire sometime in the past 16 years,” says Haggard. “But then you look at your expenses and the people you’re employing. All the money just flew out the window.”

Even surgery for lung cancer in 2008 couldn’t stop him. Seven weeks after the operation, he was back on the road. “It hadn’t spread. And the lung grew back,” he explains. “It was probably asbestos. They said it was a type of cancer usually found in Asian women. And I’ve never had no Asian woman.” He has made some concessions to age, though. “I quit eating bacon about six months ago. It’s hard to eat good food when you have to contend with gravity.”

Haggard just wishes that more Americans shared his work ethic. “I don’t think young people have a handle on what they’ve lost,” he says. “This country was built on three shifts every 24 hours, and now we’re talking about working three or four days a week. There’s nobody who wants to do the stoop labor, and there is a whole bunch of it to do.”

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