The job from which I retired in the state’s Education Department was more than a job. In many ways, it was family, a vocation. Not only did I believe strongly in what I was supposed to help to achieve, I worked with people who were my kindred spirits.
I’m thinking of this today because one of my best work buddies has retired. Interestingly enough, there was much we did not have in common — she attends church and is much more a workaholic than I. She’s a softer touch, too.
But she would accept the kind of rant I made in the post below because she knows that, basically, we share the same moral and humanistic values — no matter what our outward trappings might be. One summer we spent a week together at the Omega Institute together — she to a workshop on African dance and I to one on dancing the Lindy Hop.
I’m thinking of this today because my former “secretary” (I hate to call her that because she was so much more than that) send me a joke in an email. We laughed a lot together. Here’s the joke — which you might already have hearad, but I like it — well, it will be obvious why:
A woman in a hot air balloon realized that she was lost. She lowered her
altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted out to him,
“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend that I would meet him
an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am!”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re 30 feet above
sea level. You’re at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100
degrees 49.09 minutes west longitutde.”
The woman rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Democrat.”
“Yah, I am,” said the man. “But how did you know?”
“Well,” she answered, “everything you told me is technically correct,
but I have no idea what to do with your information and I’m still lost.
Frankly, you haven’t been much help to me.”
The man smirked and responded, “You must be a Republican.”
“Yes, I am,” the balloonist replied. “How did you know?”
“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re
going, you’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air,
you’ve made a promise you have no idea how to keep then expect me to
solve your problem for you, and you’re in exactly the same position you
were in before we met but, somehow, it’s now my fault.”
I’m thinking of this because today, as I finished putting together a couple of those “assemble yourself” pieces of furniture and am therefore motivated to rearrange and spring clean, I know that my daughter has the same impulses — change something, add something new and that gets you to do the cleaning that needs to be done. These days she’s antiquing her kitchen cabinets. We both like to build things, make things, fix things. Hands-on. She thinks maybe she should have learned to be a carpenter. I wonder if there is something I should have learned to be.
There is something about the coming of spring that makes me nostalgic for a life filled with life-filled people.