Brickyard day labor: A true story

It isn't fair to judge the chill of a Nebraska night by an ordinary gauge. Even if it were 40 degrees in early March there is still a quality to the night that grabs onto bones through layered clothes and wraps itself around them, chilling the bones' owner until he or she would shake uncontrollably.

Lincoln is a bustling place by day, but it has its homeless wandering the Downtown, along O Street, here and there. They might be mistaken for mountain men come down from the high air in Colorado. Their eyes are fixed and their hair and beards are wild. They shuffle with vacant eyes, mostly not begging but just milling about among passers by with their 1,000-yard stares. Often I think these men may have crossed some unseen meridian and we walk among them unseen as they travel through some world I cannot see. Maybe it is a world where they are not cold, or hungry, and can ignore the blast of the Great Plains' nightly torrent. In the morning, most have survived and some have not.

And then there are the others, who have not taken to the streets yet or who have just left the confines of indoor living in an early foray into their homelessness. One of the last tethers of hope for these people are the day labor jobs that can be found from the town's two big employment agencies.

I signed up with one, which promised back-breaking work and little pay for long hours and outdoor conditions. The brickyard was a favorite spot for labor. Brickyards need lots of labor -- lots of day labor. One might draw pulling bricks off the assembly line after they are broken up by machine, or quality controlling the bricks to be packaged, or packaging or -- breaking up the bricks that were found wanting from the sorting process. And, those bricks were broken up the old-fashioned way, by sledge hammer. To the naked eye, the 25 or so men sent from the employment agency might just as well have been a prison road gang off to do its chores under the tight control of uniformed officers. What was lacking were the orange jumpsuits, the supervisors wearing uniforms or guns. But then again, the brickyard supervisors didn't need guns because they had something much more important to hold over these men.

Of the 25 or so day laborers they received everyday, there were at least a half-dozen already turned out and living in the small woods just behind the employment agency, where day help received their assignments for the brickyard. Others slept in the deeper woods, huddled in nothing but a good jacket, jeans and work boots. I was one of those still lucky enough to have a car before it would be repossessed in a week or so. Hence, the boss at the employment agency told me to "take two men with you and I'll give you $3 at the end of the day. But, you best be takin' those men, ya hear!?"

'Yes, sir.' I needed the money as much as anyone and was willing to endure whatever I had to in order to just get through the day and live inside.

The $70 from today would go far. I could have meat with my meal. Maybe I could get warm gloves and put a few dollars away for my trip back to New Jersey in a few days. My two charges opened their doors and got in the car. Both had been living outside overnight. The fellow in the backseat, Joey, called out in the middle of the silent ride: "That bitch threw me out for nothing. I can't live in a field. I'm going to die out there."

He might. It could happen. It wouldn't be the first time. It sure wouldn't be the last. What happened if it got legitimately cold out? Joey's thinsulate jacket wasn't going to do much against 25 degrees with either rain, hail or snow atop it. His eyes were gaunt and wide with fear. I cannot imagine what he felt like after his night's sleep, or how he could propel himself forward to come back for a day's wage at the brickyard.

TO BE CONTINUED

Youngsters speaks out about factory farms

This is a great video forwarded by Dr. Dale Irvin, at the NY Theological Seminary:

Does God change?

Two doctors have told me that I have shoulder and neck problems, and my knees are very arthritic. Over the years, my eyesight has diminished as well and maybe -- maybe -- my judgment has improved (some would argue not. lol). But what change has taught me is humility -- and something about the very nature of what 'change' is. Is God changeless? It's a good question. To a Trinitarian perspective, God is made of three parts: Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The Trinity is how people can best understand the nature of God, it would be argued by many Christians. One part of that Trinity is Jesus, of course. Yet, the very nature of what and who he is leaves room for interpretation. Was Jesus fully divine at birth? Was he fully human at birth? Was he fully human and fully divine?

Ask a dozen esteemed members of the clergy and their answers will fall into, or around, one of these three options. As for myself, I have no idea about the true nature of Christ. I only believe he was. But, there is something in here to think about: If God-Jesus was any part human, any part at all, does not he also change over time? To change is to be human. The only thing one might say is the ultimate character of the human condition is change.

Ultimately, death could not restrain God. Christ did not die. He rose from the dead. He ascended to heaven in his human body.

So, does some part of Christ's ongoing ministry continue to change, evolve over time as a consequence of his humanity? I think it's possible, not owing any partisanship to the idea. But, if that is true then the discussion returns to the basic question: Does God change? If God-Jesus is either fully human or fully divine and fully human than the real possibility of evolution and change has to be considered strongly.

I know, this is the kind of thinking that can give people headaches. Yet, these are fair questions about a God that will always be a mystery to us. It's one of those questions that can never be answered yet can be asked.

Just who Jesus was and is continues to be considered as part of theological studies involved with Christology, which is the study of who Christ was. 

Why do we change? And, why do we change as we do? Why are my knees less reliable but my heart more reliable than it was 20 years ago? Why do people ebb and flow like the tide?

If we are made in God's image, and people are defined by change, does God not change?

The government is responsible for some things

Where are the answers coming from today? It is true that the government, at least not the government in the United States, should be all-powerful in job creation and righting the ship that is the economy. But, it has a role. It clearly has a role.

If this nation were attacked by a hostile force and people driven from their homes, communities destroyed and the health of American communities were at stake then the government would clearly step in. The only thing is that it is not some boogeyman doing all the shaking up in communities now -- if is a stale economy -- near motionless in some parts of our great country. And, now more than ever, the government and its leaders must be made accountable for the welfare of communities and their families.

During the last great economic downturn (the Great Depression (1929-1941)) it can be argued that World War II saved then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from being the president who presided over the worst economic period of this country. In fact, though, Roosevelt's innovation at least gave people hope -- and more importantly jobs -- during periods when they needed them badly. It was the government's business. It was then and it is now.

Maybe the best route is not the Roosevelt approach. Maybe it is something else: But, here is what is not the best approach -- 'Let's give all the millionaires in the country an enormous tax break and call it a day.'

Everyday faith and learning to swim

A long time ago, when I was a cadet at the Marine Military Academy, in Harlingen, Texas, this kind of crusty old Royal British Marine Commando color sergeant, I want to say his last name was Halpin, was engaged by the school to be the physical education teacher. It was a wise choice. Color Sergeant, which was basically how he was always referred to, was not an overly large guy but incredibly fit in that way almost constant calisthenics and running will make one.

Anyway, I was a high-school freshman and did pretty well under Color Sergeant, except for one thing: I really couldn't swim very well and it showed. Well, he thought I needed after-school attention, myself and some other boys, so we were at the pool and swimming then. OK, that was a lot of swimming. Yet, I still wasn't very good and was probably the most remedial of all the remedial students he had. So, Color Sergeant kicked it up a notch.

Sunday morning was the only time the academy afforded cadets to sleep in and go to brunch or not. It was a sacred time, almost as much as church. One bright morning, something impossible happened. At first, I thought it was a very bad dream: Color Sergeant was standing over my bunk at 7 a.m., in his full Color Sergeant uniform, informing me to get out of bed because we were going to go to the pool and I was swimming -- and would, every Sunday, every day after school and "every Saturday afternoon if we have to."

We went to the pool, but somehow something clicked. No, it wasn't the threats of more exhaustion by Color Sergeant. Inexplicably, somehow, I just 'got' the whole swimming thing. At the end of the two-hour long session, Color Sergeant was pleased. For the first time, he said I had a good day -- and it was.

I think faith might be a little like that: We cannot lose our faith unless we choose to stop having it. If we never give up on God then no one will ever be that far from him or his grace. Easier said than done in this less-than-perfect world, but it sounds true enough.

Facing homelessness in Lincoln, Nebraska

In the past two weeks, for the first time in my life, I am looking at being homeless. And, it reminds me of something I have not experienced since I was a small child -- abject fear.

Since the newspaper I published in New Jersey closed in 2009, my career has steadily declined. No longer a writer, I found work as a nurse aide, trying to find that next publication on my off time. It didn't happen. Like a lot of Americans, particularly New Jerseyians, my career and personal trajectory was headed in the wrong direction. There is no upside to this right now, except that I cling to my faith like the only thing rooted to the ground during a storm.

I do not think God has forsaken me. But, I am terrified of what the future holds next. My physical condition is generally alright, with the exception of some asthmas I picked up at the base of Tower South in the wake of the Sept. 11th attacks, a set of knees knocked around pretty good from my Army days and now a left shoulder I've thrown out working a job that is a lot easier for 20somethings. There is no money coming in and all of my credit was pretty much tapped in the move from New Jersey to Nebraska. I have no credit anymore.

Why Nebraska? In general, the economy is a lot better here. People are working, as opposed to day after day of business closures and shutdowns back home. I wanted hope and came here, landed a job at a hospital but got hurt on Jan. 22nd, though I worked on the injury until about two weeks ago when a doctor at the hospital assigned me "sedentary work," which the hospital could not accommodate.

A few days ago my supervisor was talking about me getting better and back on the schedule. But, the tides have turned there and I think it's likely I am being let go while I am out injured. It was the same story in Jersey for nurse aides that got injured. In general, when they get hurt they risk losing their jobs unless they have real history somewhere.

Last week, I got groceries from the Lincoln Food Pantry, which thank God was there. A social worker from the Lincoln VA pointed me in the direction of a state program that may (or may not) help stave off my eviction, I have applied for public assistance -- all the things I would never have thought would happen to me. But, they have.

And I am terrified. White-knuckled. Terrified. There are some homeless here who live on the streets. Their lives are hell. My worker's compensation lawyer says it will be months before this case may or may not be decided. My bankruptcy attorney cannot do anything because there is only the $200 I have left to my name in my checking account.

My friends and even my daughters have put up with late-night fits of mine, sometimes near crying. I have asked everyone I know for anything they could loan me, and wisely they know the chances of being paid back any time soon are questionable. Besides, times are tough for everyone now. I am not the only person for whom the bottom has fallen out.

My prayers are for not being on the street now. For having food. Shelter against the Midwest's winter. I never know when the lights or heat will be turned off for non-payment. I registered with a temporary agency and now would work on my bad shoulder and crippled up knees -- to death if I had to -- just to not become homeless. Is it right? No. Fair? Not by a long shot. But, anyone who has been around this world knows that doesn't always happen in life.

Now, why is this editorial (such as it is) on this website -- because God is the only thing I have left to cling to now, and I hold his knees as tightly as I can. My mentor, Rev. Kathleen Tice, always advised that God knows what he is doing, and the wisest thing any of us could do is simply let him do his work. Still, I am terrified and pray that God's time and my time might be the same just this once -- and that maybe I could get a prayer answered in time.

Please, God. Please, God.

Mentally disabled child gets new hope for transplant

From the New York Daily News, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia refused 3-year-old Amelia Rivera a kidney transplant because Amelia is afflicted with a rare disorder, Wolf-Hishhorn syndrome, and doctors were concerned the disorder would impact the girl's ability to take medication needed to sustain the transplant. However, after Amelia's mother, Chrissy, launched an online crusade to change hospital officials' minds there is new hope.

Why operate a virtual ministry today?

If the Church is to be a community then it cannot be a place of self-imposed limits. Communities are places where people live within and function within their context. A community is a place where someone may live their whole life. It must, therefore, be as limitless as the possibilities of our individual situations.

During the 21st century in the United States it is too much to expect the same kind of church experiences that dominated everyday life decades before. Single-income households are normal living for some families, as are single-parent households. The so-called ‘simpler days’ of homogenous societal enclaves, where artificial communal particularism could be crafted in order to make a pre-arranged product or grouping of people are also a part of American history and not a fact of living today, for the greatest number of communities across this country. The role of women in our society has expanded, as have notions of manhood, and gender roles have been through revolution and many revisions.

The American experience is, in fact, so broad that to try and quantify it demographically, culturally, economically, spiritually, socially and culturally would be too ponderous to be functional; and after much work would blur along so many lines as to make categorizing groups of people needing the Church questionable. But, what is in common with people from every walk of life is that they need God. At least clergy can agree upon that, regardless of what stripe of Christian, Muslim, Jew or Buddhist they may be. People have always needed God, whether they realize it or not and church – the Church – is where they go to find him or her, as the case may be.

Rather than try to figure out how excessive work hours and technology have become the focal point of our collective lives, the real point is dealing with it and creating a space for functional faith, which fits inside modern parameters for survival, and its fluctuating work hours, 12-hour shifts, single-parent obligations and expanded family dynamics. Figuring out how much it is going to rain while the storm has already started is less important than negotiating the storm and seeing it through. With this in mind, technology permeates our work-soaked environment to the point where the systems that support people and families must make changes to remain relevant to those they serve.

For the Church to fulfill its mission of reaching people and being a part of their lives the Church must be present throughout the spectrum of peoples' lives, potentially accessible to them at any and every moment. Yet, technology has facilitated the Church with the ability of having an almost omnipresent place in the lives of congregants and those seeking spiritual homes, should leaders wish it to be so. Largely speaking, though, most within the Church, as a whole, have not recognized this ability yet and if it has then full development of functionality has not arrived yet for the organizations that require it. Meanwhile, skills necessary to implement virtual ministries on a broad scale are not there yet, but can easily be assembled organizationally.

Whether it is creating a virtual ministry or a brick-and-mortar ministry, the key word is ‘dedication.’ Insofar as a physical or virtual church the parameters have to be established up front and systems developed around those parameters. For example, in a physical church, perhaps there will be three services on Sunday, a men’s Bible study on Wednesday night and a women’s Bible study on Thursday night. So, there has to be someone to open the doors to the building in accordance with that schedule, clergy has to be present, the sanctuary has to be readied before service, and for the meetings there has to be rooms set up, in accordance with the conduct of meetings for the church concerned. A virtual ministry is not so dissimilar: For instance, the first Sunday morning service will be recorded and placed on the website, with a message afterward from the pastor or a deacon discussing the importance of those not able to be physically present but still being members of the congregation. Then, either both Bible studies may be recorded, or perhaps the pastor or one of his or her deacons will offer a separate Bible study, which is recorded and placed on a site. Maybe prayer line hours for the week will be posted on the site, so congregants not able to travel to their house of worship can call in and have someone to talk to.

Meanwhile, there may be several meetings of ministries within a church that will be held during the week. Of the several meetings taking place, maybe two or three of those are recorded. Of course, as well as being advertised on the site, a church can also place news of site updates on its Facebook or other social marketing page.

The point is that ministry is not a part of every parishioner’s everyday life right now, because there are times when it is just not possible to get in a car and spend several hours at a brick-and-mortar location for some people. By changing the conditions upon which parishioners participate in congregations, by expanding definitions and abilities, just about anyone, anywhere can participate in Church life – because of iPhone applications, air cards for laptops and data plans for cell phones.

Virtual ministry cannot and should not be a matter left to contractors. The pace of daily life is too swift for there to be filters or ‘dead time’ between the people who need ministry and those operating ministry. If the discussion is about any ministry, then that has, or should have, a connotation that the Church is more accessible than the paradigm of the brick-and-mortar institution as it is currently configured and this can only be fulfilled by ordained or non-ordained church leaders operating ministry. It should not be left to someone paid from the outside becoming an artificial buffer between those needing and delivering ministration.
Virtual ministry is just another ministry, like a clothing closet, a soup kitchen, meals on wheels or the choir, among others. It is either the pet project of ordained clergy or it is the ministry that has touched some member of the church council or the deaconry. Some of the necessary skills for this ministry will be technological and communicative. It is just another skill, though, that the Church requires to operate from among the parts of its body: These skills will never be optional again so they can be trained and developed formally, just as hospital visitation and special music configurations that are part of the Church are right now.

Being conversant in some basic means of digital communication has to be as normative a Church experience as youth choir, Sunday school or serving on the diaconate.

In any Church office there should be training. Formal training is the hallmark of just doing something in a prescribed manner in order to achieve normative, predictable results that are desired by an organization.
The degree of formal education necessary to be competent to operate a virtual ministry is a good question, which can be discerned from the overall design of the ministry.

What is it that an organization wants its virtual ministry to do; how far does it want a virtual ministry to reach into the lives of its parishioners and the public? Does a church want to be available 24 hours in the first place? This is a decision to consider and make.

Does the larger mission of a ministry have room in it for a round-the-clock mission, and if it does then there are going to be logistical necessities that will need to be put in place. If it does, then it will need to staff its ministry accordingly. A 24-hour-accessible ministry amounts to shift work, featuring eight-hour shifts for volunteers. Perhaps there is not a need or want to operate around the clock, but knowing the capability is there is an important issue in itself for a church.

Can we expect too much from reconciliation?

If a fence can be mended everyone benefits from it. 

 

I think making amends and clearing the air between people in our lives is important. No, we do not have to do this. Certainly, each of us know families that have been damaged by long-term feuds and fighting, and there is no way back from that, I think, to some extent. But, there can be peace and a place in our hearts where we have made peace with it.

So, when there comes a time in our lives where there is a need for fence mending or whatever you would like to call it, does it mean that everything will be rosy between one's self and whomever they have reconciled with? Well, maybe is the best I have come up with so far. There is no generic answer for what is 'reconciled.' It is entirely subjective. For me, 'reconciled' simply means a disagreement or posture of hostility is ended by the mutual consent of all parties. Sure, it would be nice to forget everything involved with whatever happened, but there are no time machines yet. Until they get created and thrown into the mix, I think the best any of us can do is work for as much peace in our lives as we each can.

As Christians, we are called to love. But, when there is something in our lives that we hold close that amounts to hate then, inevitably that disharmony has a dramatic impact upon our live -- our faith and even our health. But reconciliation is not a magic bullet to forgetting the past forever. It is the ending of a disagreement, even a number of disagreements maybe. It is the turning of a page and that page may give way to another chapter or it may be the last page of a book. Nevertheless, a clean break is always better than one conducted in acrimony. It is from reconciliation between people that the very best closure can happen, I believe. It is the purposeful peace between people that can remove the stinger from wounds so they can heal well.

Not all reconciliation is going to end in future relationship. Men and women have free will and future relationship is something people have to make decisions about. Past relationships are things can fix and heal, clear the slate on. And, there is great value there. Bad outcomes are weights each of us can carry into the future and future relationships like metal luggage, slowing us down and hampering progress in things that will help us improve as people, as Christians.

Reconciliation can be the beginning of something new or closure.

Forgiveness is a central concept here in reconciliation. It is not enough to say one forgives another. It has to be meant, and those words are so easily said and hard to do that it defies explanation. The worst wounds are the ones those close to us can make. In the case of a friend, well, reconciliation is a good plan but it is not as essential to who we are as people as reconciliation, amends with our families. It is from our families that some measure of our identities are forged.

I often see Christianity as an evolution of our own identities. Who are we? Well, I am 'Jim.' And then I would proceed to say I am so old, come from such and such and, before long, I will say something about my family. They come from here. My father worked at this. My brother resides such and such a place. This is natural among people. When we become Christians and really take it into our hearts, then when that question is asked it will seem as natural as falling off a log to say, '...and I am Christian.' I make the supposition that before we have made amends and fixed the fences of the past it is hard to take Christianity all the way into one's heart.

With that said, every case does not require physical contact with people. One's father or mother may have been long dead before they seek to reconcile situations -- find forgiveness and love in one's heart for things said and done. Yet, we can work in the positive -- with what is on hand and present for use, and do what we can to the greatest degree possible to clear out lingering emnity, resentment and ill feeling. And by doing this, by daring to forgive, reconcile the past and place one's self in a place of not being comfortable for a little while then there is a dividend: peace.

Are there things that are unforgivable? Yes. In my book, I think there are things that can be unforgivable. They are extreme. And, everyone has to answer for themselves what 'unforgivable' means. But, I would caution folks to be judicious and serious about that.

In the world beyond reconciliation ,where one has traveled that causeway, the soul is lighter. In forgiving another, someone frees not only someone else but also their own spirit from something that should be unnatural to people -- anger, resentment and even pain. Reconciliation is not a pact with someone for the future but a re-visitation of the past and an amendment to an outcome that does not try and re-write history. And, insofar as its result, the backpack each of us carries around, filled with our past hopes and disappointments, can get just a little bit lighter.

If Christ taught us nothing, it is that people are far more connected than we give ourselves credit. Each time any of us reaches our hand to help someone -- be they kin or stranger, friend or even foe -- they end up helping themselves too. Now, for sure, the Lord did not inspire us to do the foolhardy. Common sense has to be given some weight here. But, where fences can be mended they should be. It makes us better people even to try. And, in the end, since there are no perfect people on this less-than-perfect world, trying is all we can each do about anything.

My father and his expectations...and then there were mine

My father was born in 1919 and raised in Newark. It was Newark, New Jersey under the ward system, where ethnic majorities were herded into their own areas of the city: Irish, Italian, Portugese, Blacks, Hispanics, etc. Conditions were poor but families and communities were very cohesive. This is not to say that life in Newark before or after the Depression (1929) was not often violent and repressive. It is to say most everyone had a family and someplace (however meager) that was home. Some people in these wards came from the United States and others had immigrated here. It was not uncommon for kids in my father's neighborhood to stop their education in high school, or even before. But, they believed in working hard and working their way into prosperity: education was not seen as the essential element of success. They also had an iron-clad sense of family and loyalty to the precepts of 'family first,' though friendship was also something taken very seriously. The church was upper-most in their priorities; even when they didn't attend (like my Dad) they still sent in their envelopes during the Capital Campaign.

My father's generation married one woman (or man, as the case permitted), usually held one serious job all their lives long, had kids, bought houses in the suburbs, probably belonged to some union or other if they knew Dad or someone like him and had a pension as promise and reward for a life that was filled with hard work and steady, albeit grudging rewards. And, so they fought for a job, a spouse, their families, kids and their home, as well as their wages and pension. Most of my father's generation participated in World War II in some way. My father was a soldier and his brother was a sailor: Dad came home and his brother didn't. My mother worked in a factory that supported tank production, my grandmother sewed clothes for the Army, my father's sisters also worked in war-related jobs during that period (1942-1945), while my Dad's mother continued in her job mopping floors.

Of course, the last vestiges of the ward system was burned away during the 1967 riots in Newark, when Mom and Dad thought it might be a good idea to finally move to the "country" and start on that next chapter of theirs. It seemed not everyone was so willing to embrace the status quo and, afterward, my parents' hometown lay burned and ruined, and stayed that way well into the 1990s. They seldom went back and, when they did, never called it "home" anymore.

My father's victory later in life was measured by him whenever he went out to sit on his porch, smoke his cigarette, read his Star-Ledger and looked out over his lawn with big trees and a wide driveway, with a fairly new car in it. He owned one house in his life. And, when he came home from work there were no responsibilities other than resting for his work the next day: man as provider. Meanwhile, my mother worked at a factory job my Dad dropped her off for every day and attended to him. They had one marriage, two children, one house, one car, three television sets, two pensions and two very difficult jobs every day. And for them, this was the victory after coming into this world in poverty.

In those days, a union job or a position with a big company virtually assured that someone would earn a respectable pension, provided they were not a slacker. They had to be on time, look right, not gripe, work injured sometimes unless it was really big, not offer smack talk to the bosses and keep their nose to the grindstone until one day they earned that coveted gold watch. My Dad had his and was so very proud of it. He wore it often, even when it stopped working after a few years. It was proof that he had finished the circuit, gone the route, crossed the finish line.

He retired in 1984. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1986. After eight years of a painful fight, he died of that lung cancer in 1994.

I have made a lot more money in paychecks than my father ever did. But, during his time inflation had not turned the dollar into something like the yen. I have had quick advancements, big pay raises, expensive lunches to sign big deals, inter-office and intra-office intrigue, overnight company launches and  sudden, unannounced company shutdowns, prolonged unemployment interrupted by fast opportunity, punctuated by company shutdowns -- and no pensions or pensions begun but never around long enough to stick. I have been married more than once, to say the least. I have moved many times and owned several houses, in several states. 

My expectations were so much higher than my father's. I have a Master's degree while he left school in the 10th grade. I've written a book and he rarely ever read a book. He was not a Zen master by any stretch of the imagination, though. He was in pain a lot. He was angry a lot. He rarely, if ever, enjoyed what he had for long before some tirade or other. But, to his definition he had 'won,' whatever there was to win in life.

He wanted a decent job, a good wife, a nice house in a friendly neighborhood and a new car every decade or so and he was willing to do whatever he had to in order to see that through. I never ended working that hard on anything -- not a job, marriage, family, community or house. I do not think I was atypical of a lot of people in my generation. But, then again, my father was a product of a racist, sexist, stratified society where everyone knew their place -- or needed to -- and got along the best they could with the status quo. My generation wasn't having any part of that, none of it.

Things changed, for the good and the bad. During my years of working, no one believed in companies delivering on their promises of anything -- and they lived up to, or down to, that. Why give a company your soul when you're a number? Yes, times changed a lot. Rather than work for someone else, my friends and I launched our own ventures, went to school and traveled a lot more than our parents did. And, we were not OK with a meager existence. In too many instances, our jobs became the most important thing, our families were something like a third priority and marriage -- well, that just became a free-for-all (at least statistically speaking, on a national level). Divorce became an industry in the 1980s and 90s and remains so today.

In my experience, people rarely say what they really want. I think this is so because, if they did, they would see how much nonsense it is. To be truthful, if someone would have asked me in 1992 what I wanted, I should have said, 'I want a lot of money and a good job to give it to me. I will work almost 24 hours a day provided I am paid right. I want a family but just do not want it to interfere with my job or making money. In exchange for this, I would like my family to totally support me, no matter how nuts this gets, and in return I will provide a lot of stuff.' This is not a reasonable goal or set of goals.

I got everything I wanted for a little while and then I didn't.

Today I get to start over again in my 40s, a lot less brash, a lot more tired and less expectant. I have a decent job, a nice car to get me to work, a wonderful partner and nice place. I think I can pull off retirement more or less on time if I keep my nose to the grindstone. Hopefully, I will mend some fences and maybe not. Nevertheless, the University of Life has done its work. I could have made a lot less money and been happier, been far fewer places, done fewer things I impulsively wanted to do, earned fewer diplomas, been kinder at times and more serious at other times. And, though hindsight is 20/20 it is rarely of much use other than as historical research for whatever is next.

I think I will work for retirement and mind my relationship(s) more, enjoy good cups of coffee longer, plan smarter, try and take better care of my health but -- more than anything -- try and appreciate the small things and remain grateful for what I have and what I have been blessed with and try to tend them both.