I found this rare photo of myself eleven months before the heart attack. It is hard to believe I was that nimble and that skinny. I weighed 60 pounds less (see photo) than today, all of which was to change beginning that August.The picture has me in IHOP, counting toothpicks. The Marlboro cigarettes indicate Frank was also counting. Notice the small pile of rejects, toothpicks that were malformed. In the end, these numbered 135,000.
For the record, I still have some 1,100 floppy disks, many containing very large amounts of unpublished blog material. The only greater collection of journals is my hand-written pages, which are very vulnerable to deterioration. It is pointless to even think about key-entering such huge quantities of files until my pensions start many years from now. Unless somebody perfects written character recognition, those millions of words may never be published, a pity because they are a revelation of the social injustice of poverty.
Some readers may object to my use of the word poverty, since I’ve always had a good job whenever I worked. I state that poverty is relative, that I have never seen any true poverty in America, so I am largely referring to lack of opportunity. It is false that anybody can work themselves up in the world. Some gifted people make it, most don’t stand a chance. Sure, millions of others no doubt were as poor as I and went through the same meat grinder. But did they write it down?
Maybe I am a thousand times ahead of where I started, but that makes assumptions of where that starting point was. I didn’t break even on my student loans until I was out of school twelve years. Borrowing for education is a stone around anybody’s neck, it prevented me from buying a house before prices went astronomical. It is not fate, but a telling comment on my parent’s values that, as one of six children, I had the highest school marks, worked the hardest on the farm, sacrificed the most, yet I was the one who received the least help.
In my day, a decent education cost $15,000 including food, shelter and transportation to campus. I went through university wearing the same clothes as when I was 14, and in total received the grand sum of $20 from my parents. In all those years, when I should have been focusing on study, grooming future contacts and meeting the girl I would marry, I got a lousy twenty bucks. These are the people who swore they would pay for my university. Unfortunately, I believed them and had no backup plan. They were in the top 5% income bracket in the world. There are two sides to every story, you may say that you’d like to hear their side of it. Trust me, so would I.
If I sound edgy, I’m having a day-long reaction to a new prescription. Or, maybe an adjustment conflict with an existing medication, at ten pills every day it is hard to tell. I ran into Hi, the guitarist of recent mention. He apologized for missing our scheduled Sunday practice and would like a second chance. I’m considering it, since he already has music in his blood. It never hurts to have two guitarists who know your material, and in this case, two guitarists who cannot perform solo.
This sentence is simply to test the search engine. It is a quote from myself at age 21: "I've been out with hundreds of women who played hard to get--once each." Man, was I lippy back then. Here's another original from yours truly: "Canadian taxes make food so cheap a lot of people can barely afford it."
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