My Life, No Plan, Just Serendipity

I grew up in a rural area on a dirt road. There were three stables with riding rinks close by, but no kids for well over a mile. I was on my own. I was not socialized. And it showed. 

My Dad saved every Life magazine during WWII. I read them all. I read or flipped every page of the World Book Encyclopædia. I read every Reader's Digest from 1940 to 1955 - every Improve Your Word Power.

I never finished the 10th grade. Why bother going to classes when I could roam the city and get into shenanigans?

After one grand day involving beer, girls in bikinis, and the water patrol, the judge and my Dad agreed the US Navy would be suitable for me. While I occasionally had some good times, spending three months at a time cruising in a small box of water in the South China Sea was boring.

I got a GED while in the Navy. Easy Peasy. Out of the Navy, I drifted from one low-wage job to another. 

While working, I started college. Got good grades. I was scared of math, but I screwed up my courage and took two quarters of remedial Algebra. It proved painless.

I got a job at a small life insurance company. As a Management Trainee, I worked for a few months in every department. I loved Actuarial. The President of the company bought an IBM 360/30. He had one programmer who did not know jack. Since the Navy had sent me to several programming classes, the president tapped me to program. I had zero practical experience, but I managed to create what he wanted.

So I was serendipitously sucked into programming. After I graduated (with honors, not bad for a HS kick out), I got a job with a company that was moving its data processing from McAuto in St. Louis to in-house. Suddenly, I was immersed in languages I knew nothing about. I was surrounded by very experienced programmers. It was sink or swim.

Skip ahead a few years, and I again fell into what was at the time a narrow field - online programming on an IBM-directed project. Two years and four IBM classes later, I knew my way around.

At another company, I was hired to install and customize an online system. I poured myself into it. I went on to install several more third-party systems and write my own. Staying late and having a computer to myself was intoxicating. I was a full-fledged nerd.

Five years later, I was a subject matter expert. I started my own company teaching both popular and arcane courses on the IBM online subsystem - CICS.

I had a woman booking my classes, and I nearly wore out a stainless steel air travel card. I was home Friday night and outbound on Sunday. We raced a sailboat, and sometimes Bacall would pack my clothes for the next week and trailer the boat to the regatta site. I would fly out Sunday to wherever the next class was, and Bacall would take my dirty laundry and the boat home.

It was a bit hectic, but the pay was exceptional. Most people would not work without the guarantee of a paycheck. It never bothered me.  I might not get a nickel one month, and six figures the next. I always had a few bucks left over as a seaman making $74 a month. Now I was making more in some months than most made in a year.  Not shabby for one who never finished the 10th grade.

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Memory

We had planned a short trip to Cajun country to eat with a stop in Perdido Key (west of Pensacola).  We raced the sailboat there every year. Sunday after racing, we went back to the condo and jumped in the cool pool. Refreshed, I would go to the room, usually on the tenth floor, and prop the door open and open the sliding door in the bedroom to let the sea breeze come through. Damn, it felt good. Seafood dinner to end the day.

Zac Brown - Toes.