A Personal Milestone

If I am lucky enough to wake up fifteen days from now it means that I have existed on this planet for three quarters of a century. Some of you may be thinking, so what, I’m older than that, while many more of you will say, damn he’s old. No matter which side of that number you’re on, you must admit it is an accomplishment.

On my sixth birthday I told my parents that I wanted to live to be one hundred. My mother smiled and said it’s possible and my father told me I should try and be more realistic. Well, with twenty-five years left before reaching my goal, I’m beginning to think my father was the realistic one. Now, before those of you who were brave enough to start reading this story decide to write it off as one more boring memoir, give me a little more time and I’ll share with you what the most important word in the English language is.

I won’t bore you with the details of my childhood. Any of you who grew up in a lower middle-class family with two working parents and a younger sibling to help look after would read that part of my life and think, nothing new here, and you’d be absolutely right. No, that word with all its impact didn’t come into play until my late teens to early twenties. Of course, it took me a lot longer to understand how time used it on me, and I suspect everyone else on the planet. The best way to explain how this word works is by sharing what I consider accomplishments and setbacks.

My biggest accomplishments were the three children, a girl, a boy and a girl my first wife and I had. They have given me ten grandchildren and two of them have added two great grandchildren. Unfortunately, my oldest granddaughter died from brain cancer at the age of five. I can still hear her laugh and every time I see a piece of tinsel, her favorite thing, it reminds me of her. Let’s move away from people for a moment and on to things.

Work is probably the next logical place to visit. All my full-time jobs and a few of my part-time jobs have been in some way connected with the transportation industry. I learned to drive trucks while working for a furniture moving company the summer before starting college. Air traffic control became my career while serving in the Air Force and for a short time in the FAA. I worked as a warehouse supervisor for a year and then sold material handling and loading dock equipment for several years. Like all commission sales jobs, when the economy is strong you do well and when it’s not, you work part time at nights and weekends. During those times I worked as a security guard, cleaned public toilets, and loaded cargo planes for an air freight company. I did anything to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. Tired of the up and down pay cycles I took a job driving interstate busses for a large regional carrier based in Springfield, MA. The best runs were held by senior drivers, so my schedule was erratic, but the pay was steady, and I enjoyed driving interstate tours with international groups during the summer months.

As a direct result of a very contentious breakup and divorce I slept on office floors and in my car parked under an interstate overpass. Meals were comprised of whatever was on the dollar menu at various fast-food restaurants. During this period of my life money was difficult to come by even though I was working full time. If work took me out of town on payday, my X would go to the bus company office and collect my check for herself. I finally had to let the office know we were no longer together and to hold my paycheck until I picked it up. It was a difficult time and I’m glad it’s far behind me.

I eventually transferred to the branch office in Maryland where, after a short time I left and started a vending company. The good thing about the vending business back then was it was an all cash business. The bad thing about vending is it’s all cash and you must hire strangers. Once the company got too big for me to handle alone, I sold it. A lot changed over the eight years since moving to Annapolis. I got remarried to a beautiful British lady who was a passenger on one of the tours I was driving, my X had died, and my son and youngest daughter had come to live with us. Now, my son was in the army, my daughter was finishing up college with a job already lined up in a different part of the state and Annapolis had become too pricy. It was time to try somewhere new, so we decided to give Texas a try.

My partner the bank and I have owned five houses over the years located in five different states. Although having that many homes may seem as though I’ve done all right for myself, numbers can be deceiving. Four of the five houses were purchased after my divorce, and when I had moved away from Massachusetts.

Texas was a good place to work for both of us, but not what we were looking for in a place to live. I won’t ramble on other than to say I went back into the bus business and eventually went from sales manager to chief operating officer of a medium size charter company. We spent ten years living in a Fort Worth suburb until we retired. Now it was time to move to where retirees go, Florida and house number four. When we moved into our 55+ community ten years ago it was perfect for us. It was a pleasant place to live with some great amenities and best of all, we could afford it on a fixed income. Over time younger retirees moved in demanding more amenities and driving the HOA costs through the roof. Finally, after weathering two hurricanes and several insurance hikes, it was time to move, this time to Virginia and house number five, hopefully my last.

So, if your wondering what that special word is, it’s balance. Every segment of my life has been balanced by success and failure, happiness and tragedy, the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly. Most people don’t realize this until they’re well into their later years, I know I didn’t. Maybe after reading the ramblings of an old man, recognizing the balance in your life will happen sooner rather than later.