Having just read John Macartney's, I doubt that I can be as colorful,
but his is a high bar to reach.
As a child, I was born.... No, sorry, no need to start that early.
<smile> I was a U.S. Air Force brat, and lived in, at best count,
eighteen or nineteen different places in the first eighteen years of my
life, including about 30 months in England. My father was in nuclear
weapons, and I tried to take after him by destroying everything I
touched in the first few years of life. I've become a bit contrite from
that experience in later years by trying to _fix_ everything broken
around me. No, there's no need to buy a new television, it's just this
little thing that needs replacing or adjusting, etc.
I found, in high school, that it was very satisfying being a clown, and
didn't learn a lot, and therefore flunked out of college twice. After a
stint in the army (where I bought my first car, a `63 Spitfire, the
start of an obsessive urge), I went back to college, older, but not
wiser, graduated with a degree in English, and went to graduate school
on a fellowship, obtaining yet another degree in English, thereby
ensuring my future unemployment. Still needing to eat and support wife
and children, I lied about the extent of my education and became, at
different times, a night-watchman at a dude ranch, a handyman, a
blueberry-bush pruner, a foundry worker, an auto mechanic, a
construction laborer, a machinist and an electrostatic research
technician. At the one time I didn't lie about my education, I spent two
years as a college English instructor.... I have said penance for that.
<smile> Currently, I spend my days, and a considerable portion of my
nights as the supervisor of an in-house publications department for a
manufacturer of transit buses.
Along the way, I've developed far too many interests to be healthy in a
single person. <smile> Alternative energy... I have some Scot in me, and
energy from the elements appeals to my parsimonious side. <smile>
Electronics. I don't understand it all, but it's fascinating. Gardening,
though I have had little time for it in the past few years. Working on
an old, shabby house. Wonderful opportunity for one to create problems
which then must be solved--great way to keep the mind in shape. Music.
After hearing me play, my mother said, "well, there's never been anyone
in our family with any musical talent." <g> And, then, there are all the
other curiosities I have--woodworking (making beds, tables, etc.) and
reading, of which I have had little time to do lately. And, computers,
which seem to take a good deal of my time. And cooking.... Fun, but, I
do make a mess at that.
Now, at the age of 52, I am in the throes, currently, of wishing I were
older when I lived in interesting places, such as England, and
occasionally lamenting years when I had too little money and too many
interests. Now that my daughter is of age, I only need to help support
her in her quests toward a college degree when she attends, and I have a
little extra cash to put toward a revived passion, Triumphs. After
almost two decades without one in the driveway (or torn apart in the
garage), I have three, in various states, and am always looking for
more, if the price is right. There is the daily driver `72 GT6 Mk III,
which will, in the next few weeks, will begin to undergo some
considerable surgery, both cosmetic and oncological. And the organ donor
GT6, now in storage, and the `70 GT6+, which is waiting for further
ministrations.
And, after almost two decades of being divorced or separated, I am also
discovering the joys of companionship, and am trying to spend as much
time as I can with a woman I wish I'd met thirty years ago.
Lately, I am finding that one can have what one wants with regard to
things if one puts people first. In younger years, that was not so
obvious as it is now.
Cheers, all.
|