04. WRITING
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My lives begin with work. After living in a space capsule for 9 months I was forced off my life support system and into the world. The moment I took my first breath I had to start working on my human skills of eating, walking, talking and socializing. After 9 years I had mastered these skills and was now ready for a new experience. Now I had to learn about manual labor. Washing dishes, cutting grass, raking leaves and shoveling snow. Theses jobs were done at home for free because my dad told me to do them. Mowing lawns and shoveling snow for the neighbors was the first source of income for me as a kid for a few years. I could earn up to 50 cents per job.
My next job when I was 11 was for $2.00 a day, a Pepsi and a plane Bologna sandwich. I worked in the summer for a man named Bill D who sold fruit and vegetables door to door from a big red truck. He would pick me, my brother and other neighbor kids up at 7 in the morning and we would get home around 8 at night. I walked a lot but made $120 a summer for a couple of years.
My first inside job was working at a drug store for three years while in High School. Now I was making real money. $1.25 an hour and over 25 hours a week. After graduating from High School, I went to college and got an Associate Degree and payed for it by working 2 summers as a laborer on construction for $5.50 an hour.
After college I got a job at a foundry on second shift starting at $3.19 an hour. I worked there for 91 days before I had to leave for 2 years in the Military because of the draft. Since I had 90 days at the foundry before I was drafted, I was able to return to work there. I was lucky to be able to go back even though it was hard work and dirty. I had a total of 24 years there when I was laid off an got a job at an auto assembly plant then a parts plant. During that time, I went back to school and received my Bachelor Degree.
After 2 years at the parts plant, I went on Skill Trades where I worked for 18 years and then another 3 years as a contract worker.
My life began with work but I don’t want to end it with working. You can add up all the years I worked but you or I can say how long I will be around after I quit working. So, this is my farewell letter to work and a Hello to life.
