Do You Love Your Work?

Don't confuse your work with your job

Image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm dead.

                  
This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and approximately 39.9% of all grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering. 

                                                  Glossary  

                                                    About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.                                                                                        -Clarence Darrow


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

When I began this particular missive I had no idea what I wanted to write about but this is not particularly unusual. Just because I've made a personal commitment to writing a weekly letter doesn't mean I'm necessarily brimming with ideas and can't wait to start writing on any given day.

Regardless, I write nearly every day, even if it's only a few sentences. I do this for myriad reasons but I'll refrain from pouring out my psyche all over the page. Bottom line? It provides all sorts of mental/emotional/spiritual/etceteral health benefits at no charge.

Also, it somehow enables me to tap into something that I can't possibly explain with mere words. Ain't that ironical. 

I've recently made the mistake of re-researching how to make money from wordsmithing, looking into the subject more deeply than I ever have before.

Suffice it to say I've once again abandoned my novel. All the life lessons I would have you learn, carefully disguised in a (hopefully) entertaining bit of fiction, have been put back on a virtual shelf.

Sorry, it looks like you'll have to mine my weekly missives if you're interested in unearthing a nugget or two of useful information.

This is not as mercenary as it sounds. I've made, literally, less than a hundred bucks for my work since I began writing this weekly whatever it is four years ago but it's never occurred to me that I should give it up.

Trust me, I'd absolutely love to make a pile of dough for my efforts. I've tried various methods to turn my words into cash. The campaign continues apace.

But I'm sure you (possibly from me), and my gentlereaders, have heard the cliche that if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life.

It's true.

The bad news is there's a very good chance you won't get paid for your work. But even knowing what your work is, and having the opportunity to do it, is a blessing.

[Could you be a little more vague? What does any of this blather have to do with the title Your Garrulousness?]  

Dana emerges! In fact, I wrote a column (a hobby that turned into my work, these letters) on this very subject quite some time ago.

What would I have you learn, Dorothie's?

                                                     *     *     *

Strive to become skilled at something the world is willing to pay you for and is likely to keep paying you for down the road, that you don't hate, and your life will be a lot more pleasant than otherwise. But there's a good chance it won't be your work.

Your work is something you'll keep doing anyway because you almost have to and it will keep your soul from slowly evaporating as you age. Your work can be almost anything—you'll know it if you're lucky enough to find it.

[Wait-wait-wait, what's this got to do with you dropping the ball, or should I say the keyboard, as far as your novel is concerned?]

The novel's not my work, I thought I had found a job that might possibly lead to me and mine making some cold hard cash. Every time I start working on it again it quickly becomes a job that I don't much care for.

And that would be fine—I've had more than one of those, but I knew what the payoff was and I did what I had to do to take care of business. At this point, the reader might go back to the part about learning a skill the world's willing to pay for.

BIG BUT... even getting signed by a well-known publisher doesn't ensure that two, three, or more years of intellectual bloodletting will result in more than chump change.

I've read articles by compulsive novel writers that have a published novel out there, and two or three more in a drawer, that haven't made enough money to fund a vacation from their day job.

But they continue writing novels, or _______, for the same reason I continue writing my column. There are other forms of compensation besides money.

                                                   *     *     *

I'm doubly blessed.

We share, my Dear Stickies, and have for quite some time, a home. I know that's unlikely to last as you're all headed towards gruphood at the speed of life. But hopefully, one or two of my less annoying attributes are/will be of some assistance to you now and in the future.

And while I've yet to make more than a few bucks for my efforts, I, like serial novel writers who have also have been denied both fame and fortune, love my work.

And just like them, and lottery players everywhere, in my heart of hearts I know that I'm going to wake up one day and discover I have the golden ticket.

You gotta play to win, right?

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. Cranky don't tweet.






   

Mr. Cranky's Neighborhood

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

                  
                        This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens 
        Perusal by callowyutes may result in psychological, etceteralogical triggering. 

                                                 Glossary  

                                                   About

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Star: Dana — A gentlereader

"I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses." -Stephen King


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I've recently begun walking around my neighborhood. I've lived in this neighborhood for better than a decade but have never done this before. I'm a card-carrying suburban boomer with rural certifications. Suburban boomers drive. S'boomers live in developments/subdivisions/townships — not hoods.

They don't normally go for walks either, not in the traditional sense. When they do they're usually equipped with water bottles to remain hydrated as they navigate through tricky subdivisions that often contain lengthy, unmarked dead ends.

Carrying ballast to keep from tipping over, they walk briskly while pumping or swinging their arms purposefully. After a sensible dinner.

In the 'burbs, full speed jogging is usually done in the middle of the night by one-percenters, or wannabe one-percenters, so that our hero can get a jump on normal people before beginning their 16-hour workday. Exploiting the 99% takes a lot of time and energy.

Although, technically speaking, I live in a small incorporated town, which in the Flatlands of Ohio are called cities, to me it's a 'burb. I spent the first 12.75 years of my life living in inner-city Pittsburgh (with an h) in neighborhoods where yards were generally small to nonexistent and trees, except for parks, were few and far between.

From my personal perspective, I don't live in a city, it's a crowded suburb.

The yards, for the most part, are small, but almost everyone has one, and there's enough grass to require regular cutting. There are hedges and edges to be trimmed and weeds to be wacked. Almost everyone has a driveway and garages are commonplace.

People don't usually park on the street (in some neighboring "cities" it's illegal to do so) and nobody has to mark their territory (parking spot) with milk crates, retired kitchen chairs or the like and be prepared to defend their territory to the death (or at least till someone calls the cops).


                                                      *    *    *

I confess I'm not a big fan of the Buckeye state. I've been living here temporarily for 34 years. It's me, not them. It's never felt like home. I felt more at home during my brief sojourn in the sunbelt that I ever have here.

But the thing that I love about my neighborhood is the trees.

It's a very old neighborhood full of architecturally unremarkable, modest homes once mostly inhabited by barely middle-class employees of local steel mills and factories that are mostly gone.

Now it's inhabited by retired former employees of local steel mills and factories that are mostly gone, and younger H. sapiens that haven't fled to points south of the Mason-Dixon, at least not yet.

And hooge "perennial plants with elongated stems, or trunks, supporting branches and leaves"—which is how Wikipedia describes trees—of all sorts.

                                                   *     *     * 

True, and newer, suburbs may have larger yards, houses, and incomes but often the trees have been redlined, restricted to their own neighborhoods. The trees, if any, are usually saplings or not much more than saplings (teen trees?). My modest neighborhood has enormous trees and lots of 'em. Far more birds than people live here.

Although the bottom third of my county consists primarily of tiny cities and realburbs, the rest is mostly rural and chock full of farms (and trees). This is why occasionally eagles, hawks, and falcons can be spotted soaring overhead.

"Honey, have you seen the cat?"

There are at least two owls that live in or near my neighborhood. I've never seen them but I hear them almost every day. I assume they're warning each other to keep to their own turf or things will get ugly.

[Hey, nature boy, have you received a commission from Dodging Death Digest?] 

No, Dana, I'm painting a charming foundational, literary picture of my neighborhood, for what follows.

What started out as a way to get some much-needed exercise without going to da'mall and joining my fellow geezers and geezerettes walking in circles around the local consumer cathedral like a secular version of devout Muslim pilgrims circling the Kaaba, got me thinking. 

One day it occurred to me, it's 2019 in America, where are all the protesters?

                                                     *     *     *

My neighborhood is top-heavy with old people that, like me, worked full time for 45 years or more. Some are still working, as I would be if not for the blessing of being part of an extended family of three generations living in our large, old drafty house.

We don't own our home—in fact, if we ever find a way to swing it we'll be headed for North Carolina—but most of my neighbors do.

Beginning in the late seventies, shortly before I was lured to Canada's Deep South by my late wife (it's complicated) the factories and the mills began shutting down or moving away.

The tiny city I currently inhabit was still thriving when this started happening and many of the old people (people my age) still living here who were relatively young at the time, had tough, physically and mentally (ever work the line?) demanding jobs.

But a lot of these jobs paid fairly well, traditionally were fairly secure, and a lot of these people had bought homes—unaware of how fast and how far things were going to fall.

Not exactly an easy life but with a little luck—if the job or some bug didn't kill you first you could do 30 and out and finally fix up that tiny yard, maybe get a camper—although you might need a part-time gig to make ends meet.

Everyone knows what happened next (or should). Bottom line: a whole lot of folks are now living in modest houses, that may or may not be paid for, in various states of repair or disrepair.

Some get full pensions, most a fraction of what they thought they would eventually get when they were busting their butts back in the day.

There's no shortage of empty homes that won't sell. There are a few abandoned houses that should be torn down, and it shouldn't be so hard and expensive to make this happen.

                                                   *     *     *

The yards, for the most part, are small, but almost everyone has one, and there's enough grass to require regular cutting. There are hedges and edges to be trimmed and weeds to be wacked.

Just about every street has a retired guy with a riding lawn mower that cuts the grass of the houses that won't sell if the owner can't be bothered keeping up the yard work.

Bird feeders need to be maintained, hips and knees replaced, grandkids babysat. Everyone knows someone that was killed by and/or is being treated for Cancer. But no one is blocking Main Street and demanding The Gummit do something. Too busy. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

                                                   *     *     *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. 

Cranky don't tweet. 

  
















 





   

Cars (Pt. 3 of 3)

Image by Emslichter from Pixabay

Or, Self Indulgent Nostalgia Series (S.I.N.S) No. 5

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[The following missive is rated SSC (Sexy Seasoned Citizens). If read by grups or callowyutes it may result in psychological/emotional/etceteralogical triggering.]


                                                 Glossary  

                                                   About

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Star: Dana -- A gentlereader

"I had to stop driving my car for a while... the tires got dizzy." -Stephen Wright


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& gentlereaders),

Our boring old man story thus far...

In part one I talked about the fact that for the first 12.75 years of my life cars were of little importance as I was living in inner-city Pittsburgh (with an h) at the time and it was possible to secure the basic necessities of life (physical, emotional, and psychological) on foot or via cheap and easily accessible public transport.

[That's quite the opening sentence, Sparky.]

Thank you, Dana. I summed up an entire letter/column in just 61 words.

[I was being sarcastical I...]

I would've never guessed. In part two I described my family's decamping to the 'burbs and the fact that cars, or rather the fact we didn't have one, became very important.

Next, me and mine moved to suburban (nearly rural) Philadelphia and joined forces with my big brother Ed and his family. I now had a drivers license, a car, and a job.

The job was working at the small supermarket where my brother worked as the meat department manager and alleged heir to the throne.

He was busting his butt because he'd been told by the owners, Yano and Hack 'n' Slash, that he was accumulating sweat equity towards eventually owning the store. It never happened; it's complicated. I'd wish them well but their both dead.

Anyways, having a car and a little money took the edge off of spending my last year of public high school at an institution that was a giant step backward from the sophisticated high school I had attended for the previous three years.

The one in the Pittsburgh (with an h) suburb we couldn't really afford to live in and had so much trouble getting around in because we didn't have/couldn't afford a car.

                                                       * * *

Now securing provisions no longer involved a long walk to the bus stop, a relatively lengthy bus ride, shopping, a relatively lengthy bus ride, and a long walk home.

[And yes, I also walked five miles to school through blizzards, uphill both ways.]

Sweet.

However, the best part was being able to drive where I wanted to when I wanted to -- within certain limits -- till I moved into my own apartment once I had that last year of high school under my belt and 25 hours per week became 40+ hours per week.

My first car, a '62 Buick LeSabre, got about 10 mpg, but gas was about 29 cents a gallon at the time, so who cared? It also had wing windows, which are long gone and which I still miss, and could seat six comfortably, eight in a pinch. My friends called it the Road Grader.

I turned a modest profit by renting out the truck to Vietnamese refugee families.

[Are you trying to get us dragged in front of the Intersectional Inquisition?]

Please! I still maintain contact with some of 'em. They loan me money with no interest when I'm in trouble because they feel sorry for me. Some of their grandkids are suing Ivy League schools to overturn the bias against Asians that make the rest of us look stupid and lazy.

 [OMG! You are trying… Wait, orange?]

Actually, I think Oompa Loompas deserve some sort of affirmative action program. Ever since the Donald got elected hate crimes targeting little orange people of color are off the chart. 

[But the Donald is tall and his hair is yellow, not green.]

Obviously, he’s the result of a mixed marriage. Didn’t you know that his…

[Can we move on, please?]

                                                     * * *

One of my favorite car memories from this period involves driving through, and hanging out in, beautiful Valley Forge State Park where there were lots of beautiful young women, weather permitting.

Another was driving to the King of Prussia shopping mall to hang out because the place was full of beautiful young women regardless of the weather

Another was driving to...

[I think they can suss out the theme you're developing, Sparky.]

Sparky? Since when...

[I suppose next we're going to be treated to wild-eyed, exaggerated stories about your romantic prowess/adventures?]

Sadly, no.

I was even more introverted then than I am now. While not all that shy nowadays, I was very shy back then. And, never having been either a sex or a success object my love life has been a rather modest one.

Besides, there are all sorts of people still alive who knew me at the time, I'm not that old yet, so...

However, being young during the sexual revolution and the age of the mini-skirt, when rock 'n' roll peaked -- and before the AIDS plague broke out -- was, well, very cool. Glad I was there even if I was a bit player.

Anyways, I picked up enough so that once I eventually had two intense three-year relationships and then a 21-year marriage to my late wife I was able to appreciate that the best sex occurs within a committed relationship.

[Whoa... too much information. Wait a minute, isn't the subject of your boring interactions with cars supposed to be the subject at hand?]

Well, yeah, but I'm famous for charming digressions and occasional wonderings down Memory Lane.

[I guess that's one way of looking at it.]

Driving on...

                                                     * * *


Once I got a taste of the freedom and independence cars provided I was hooked. Since then I've devoted a great deal of time, money, and trouble to making sure I owned a car.

There have been times when cash flow problems, coinciding with expensive car repair problems, generated temporary transportation crises.

There was a time or two when these given crises went on long enough to result in life-altering changes of direction (pun intended and embraced).

However, my desire to own my own car was only reinforced. My Dear Stickies, you may have trouble relating to this but that's because your parents and I have gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure you take all sorts of things for granted.     

Millennials and Generation Z, I'm lead to believe, particularly the urban versions, don't love cars the way we Boomers and Xers did and do. But after all, life as we know it will be over in 12 years without a Green New Deal, a little less than that now.

Cars, we are told, in spite of the fact we now have corn-fed and/or battery-powered ones that depend on subsidies and Rules&Regs issued by The Gummit, are one of the reasons we find ourselves on the road to perdition.

However.

That nine-day road trip that me, Ron, and Freddie took to Disneyworld in the late seventies (a sort of workingman's Spring break) -- wherein Fred's car was a vital member of the team -- would not have attained its mythical status without an Oldsmobile Omega.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me a coffee.  

                                                   *    *    *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to. Cranky don't tweet.