A Column by John Estridge
I have always kind of bungled my way into professions or better said, phases, of my life.
When I was 19 and seeing the country during the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, I found myself in Colorado Springs with two dimes and three Mountain Dew bottles to my name. A friend of mine, Ted, suggested, at the time, a novel idea to me: that I get a job.
Wanting to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach, I took Ted’s advise and found a new pizza place at the end of the subdivision where I lived at the time and applied for a delivery driver position. Jerry, the owner, was desperate so he hired me.
Within a month, I was the restaurant manager. That is how desperate and lazy Jerry was that he made me the manager so he could drink and run women instead of working at his restaurant.
Anyway, I think I did a pretty good job as a restaurant manager for being 19 and living the lifestyle I had at the time and having no prior managerial experience.
From there, I found myself as a precision machinist and literally I am less than an idiot and a moron when it comes to mechanical aptitude. However, I think people had pretty good piston rings that I produced in their vehicles for nine years. None of the big three: GM, Ford and Chrysler complained.
When I walked in that door in November 1978, along with a very nasty stomach bug, I also had zero experience as a precision machinist. I was so sick that first day the foreman sent me home and assured me I would not be fired for missing work, I was not yet in the union. I could not drive and laid in the backseat of my 69 Chevy Impala in the factory’s parking lot for hours, every now and then hanging my head out the door of the car to well you know.
After recovering, I pretty much taught myself enough to not get fired during my time there. I even made a lot of money for me at the time because it was on piece work.
My time as a precision machinist lasted for nine years until the U.S. farmed all our manufacturing overseas.
While I was in transition from being a precision machinist to the next phase of my life, which was a really difficult time both financially and emotionally having two, then three children, and our financial future very much in doubt and flux, I answered a classified ad – remember classified ads – for a correspondent to the Richmond Palladium Item as a news reporter.
Again, I had no experience. But they were also desperate, so they hired me as a news correspondent and then also as a sports correspondent. I worked for $20 an article.
Within a couple of years, I was a full-time reporter, which worked into being an editor for more than 30 years and a publisher for a couple of years.
After I was fired as an editor and publisher, on a whim, I walked into the library and applied for a job.
Again, no experience except I have enjoyed reading since I was 6. I found in that job that it was my favorite. I pretty much taught myself how to research genealogy and local history. It was fantastic.
However, because I had a personality conflict with one person there who happened to be in a managerial position, I ended that phase of my working life. I am too old to put up with BS, especially for a part-time job.
A little departure from this vein of the column, my dad, John L, once called me the laziest person he had ever encountered. Although, it made me mad at the time, I have come to realize he was probably correct.
I did not like to hoe a garden, cut weeds with a hand tool – no weed eaters back in the Middle Ages – and do all my chores. My preference at the time was playing baseball with my buds in Liberty at the improvised ballparks we created in the neighborhood. Another popular pastime was exploring all the woods and creeks around Liberty, again with my buds.
However, I would do work when it came to being paid for it. Before I was 8, I went door to door and sold personalized Christmas cards. Remember Christmas cards? I found the ad for it at the back of a comic book.
After the age of 8, I mowed yards around the town. People used to laugh at me – for a variety of reasons – but when I started mowing and would push dad’s lawnmower from one property to another in town along the town’s streets, because sidewalks were either nonexistent or in terrible shape, people could not see my head over the mower’s handle, so it looked like the mower was pushing itself down the street. When mowing, I had to look under the top handle or around to one side or another to see where I was going.
Growing up I did the usual for this area at that time, baling hay, hanging drywall, working at gas stations and restaurants. In the latter, I washed dishes and bussed tables. That was really some glorious jobs bussing tables and washing dishes. If I remember correctly, I made $1.10 an hour doing that hot, dirty, thankless job.
Thus, I have seemingly haphazardly bungled my way into the next phase of my life: retirement.
When I left the library, I had a business idea which included contracting with a local government entity. I had a verbal agreement to do the job and then that government entity gave the contract to an Indianapolis company without even having the common decency to tell me about it.
That left me rocked, because I have known all the people involved for more than 30 years. And up to that point, I trusted them.
However, I felt at the time and even now, there is a reason I was stabbed in the back in that venture by people I always thought were my friends, and if not friends, good acquaintances. And there was a reason I could not get along with one person at the library who was my immediate boss.
While I am still waiting for that reason to make itself known, I have found myself retired. It was not planned and part of it makes me very uneasy.
In my adult life involving my time having families, I have always been the primary bread winner, so to speak. To give up that aspect is tough on me psychologically. I know that will be considered sexist or otherwise not politically correct, but that is the way it is.
Thus, this has been the first full week of me realizing I am retired. As I write this it is a Friday morning; I am drinking coffee; I am listening to my playlist 100 Songs to be Played at My Funeral, which is now at 427 selections; and writing this column.
Another aside here: since teen-age post 16 – getting my license – Fridays have always held a sense of adventure for me. In my single years, it felt like anything, any adventure could happen during a weekend, and they often did. By the grace of God I did not get arrested or die from those adventures. After marriage and more importantly children, the weekend usually meant a breather and quality time to spend with my children.
Now, I find Friday pretty much feels like Monday.
There are some long-termed, non-paying writing projects I am currently involved in, but for the most part I sit around and do fun things like read, listen to music and play games on the computer. I do not get bored, have never been bored in my life because I enjoy doing simple things, which pretty much goes along with my brain functions.
For once, I am sure my dad would agree to this if he were still alive, I have plenty of experience at being retired and doing almost nothing.
Up to this point, I have found myself enjoying each phase of my life a little better than the phase before it. I am yet to see about this new phase. I, and more importantly, My Long Suffering Wife Ruth, will let you know.