This is old, but when I was in the news bidness back in the sixties, I stopped in an old service station on the mountains between Asheville and Erwin. In there, the owner had a man's hand in a big mayonaise jar full of kerosene. "Wazzat?" I asked, not really wanting my suspicions confirmed. "Man's hand," the shop owner said proudly. "Where'd you get that?" I had to ask. "Car wreck down the road a few years ago." I put down my Moon Pie and left. Saw lots of stuff in the news bidness I don't ever want to see again. Including brains.
Right now, I'm getting ready to move back to Savannah. I hate the thought. But the little woman (LW) is the academic type, and she's been offered an associate professorship on a tenure track at the university down there. Too good an offer to pass up and I wouldn't want to get in the way of THAT train.
I haven't worked since the end of February, although I now have a yob documenting textile-related automation equipment from home and those guys don't care if I'm on the moon as long as they get their doc. And they're willing to put a T1 line to Savannah and a bucket on their server for my stuff. I just don't want to be in Savannah any more. I likes Atlanta better. I like to fish, but the
This is sort of an early retirement for me, but I worked for three and a half years after my accident, and I just don't have the desire to go back to a cube farm any more. I can only stand or walk around about ten minutes now before my back pains overpower the pain meds and I gotta sit down.
The LW wants me to write a book, but even though several people have suggested I do that, I guess I don't have the self confidence to do it. I've never thought of myself as a story teller. I'd write about my life, like Pat Conroy, but no one would believe it.
I know we're supposed to be telling what we're doing in this thread, so I hope you won't mind if I give you all just a little un-asked for advice: DONT GET UP ON ANY LADDERS. Not even short ones.
Four years ago, I had found a job in Savannah managing a documentation group. Right up my alley and very close to my boat. I was 53, thought I was 35 and acted like it. I had a new 21 foot fishing machine of a boat, and had started talking to my parents for the first time in ten years. Everything was going my way. It all ended in a crash when I hit the ground from 25 feet up an extension ladder. All the foregoing stuff that was "going my way" got up and left. I can't tell you how the subsequent injuries have fucked up my life (sorry Simon, that's the only word that works). I'm now a lifer on narcotic pain meds which has stories of its own. No stamina. Not much interest in anything. Now I'm a 58 year old, semi-handicapped guy with an active mind, but on fentanyl patches which cause bad insominia. And planning retirement on book revenues, is like retirement planning on lotto proceeds.
But don't get the idea that I'm bitching, complaining, and engaging in pity in general. I'm not. I just don't want any of you to end up where I am. Stats are bad. Sixty percent of people who fall from 20 feet die. And those who don't, 70% of chronic pain patients are divorced by their mates. (So far, so good). What ever you're needing to do, if it involves a ladder, you don't need to do it. hire someone else to do it.
BTW, I am going to try that book I guess. It's not like I have many options, but I don't know about this, y'know?
Francois