The Emerald Rose

Ok, let’s be honest here!  I AM 72 years old., and believe it or not I was in the “computer industry”in the early 1960’s. In fact both the US Navy, and my first full time employer after I got my honorable discharge, both the US Navy, and a MAJOR national bank, also had me do “outside educational presentations” to schools, and groups touring both of my employment facilities, and a their schools,

After a short “intro” as to “what computers REALLY are? I would start pulling “props” out of my pockets like a magician. Wires for the old ” program boards” you had to wire yourself to put into 8080 Card Readers so they would work, “8080 cards” to explain how it all worked together”in the dark ages of computers and data processing. Then on to the “32 column cards”, and the “Magnetic or “Mag Tape” of the old “mainframe days, and a lot more, until I ran out of pockets and props, but the kids were always fasinated by it, (and the Teachers, who knew less than the kids),….and my time was up,….til next time!

But as I got out of the Navy, went to work for a bank, and then was vacillating over what to go to college nights on the GI Bill,….things got simpler! Three kids, a wife Iloved them all, and an albatross called a “Mortgage”,….life progressed! I decided for the short term and took accounting and history, hoping for an accounting position or worst case a “teacher of History”.

The definition of mixed emotions is “watching your Mother-in-law drive over a cliff, but in your brand spanking new Cadillac convertible”. The accounting jobs were available and offered numerous lay, (which I took to pay the bills), but the “DREAM” of a job teaching High School History was fading, despite my moving all my emphasis and major toward the “History Path”.

Bottom line I opted to be a “Jack of all trades, and a master of none”. And THE SYSTEM GOT ME!!

Now at 72 I look back and honestly , don’t regret my life and what I’ve done with it, but only wish I could have done more for my family with the whole thing! So at 72 I still have to work, and strive to bring home some money, Same wife for over 50 years, and same kids, except for the youngest who did well but despite that came down with Bacterial Menengistis, and passed away about six days after his 40th birthday leaving a nine year old and an 11 month old who will never see him again! Fortunately his wife is a self made woman, and has a great career that will support her and the children, and their new mortgage for the place they bought in Washington State a month or so before he passed.

I write as a self defense tool. It allows me to just sit here in a pub, have a beer and enjoy a non-judgemental surrounding and enough “background noise” to maintain my concentration, but enough to allow me to not get “involved” and concentrate on writing.

I have been “blogging” since 2005, steadily, and recently I’m trying to pick out about 100 of my best blogs and illustrate them with some of the 3200 pictures in my iPhone camera roll, and incorporate it all into a ” self-published” Blog Book. Not to make money, but that would be ok as well, (the old ‘bod’ isn’t getting any younger, and ‘shagging’ grocery shopping carts in the parking lot SUCKS!). Secondly to put together a presentation of a second generation Irish American as to the worth and value of our country, The United States of America!

I’m proud of her, myself, and my family,….we contributed,….BUT…

Facebook has the potential to be a GREAT TOOL, but the reality of “the Devil” has it, because of the “Wide World of Trash” it has on it.

I don’t care what you had for dinner at “El Bellyo’s”, or the other “life’s trivia’ it communicates, just give me REAL meaningful information, and “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” (meaningful information, dreams, hopes, successes, failures, hope and goals) that is what it should be about. The current definition of “SOCIAL MEDIA” id trash, and that’s not an “OF’s (old fart’s) opinion. Young folks don’t realize that your “FACEBOOK ACCOUNT” means a lot to other folks you don’t want seeing it, like future employers, current employers, potential “life mates”, people that REALLY respected you when you were younger, people who thought you were the “most likely to succeed”, etc.

It’s a ‘voyeurs” paradise, the leverage that an “HR Specialist” can put on it without any chance for you to refute. Example: You’re education creds can be fantastic, your background (what little anyone knows since Religion, Politics, and Beliefs, are “verboten”), and the “real you” begins to appear as a fictional character, versus your “Facebook presence”. Do you REALLY want to defend yourself to the Vice President of Operations, about the pix of you on your Harley, you in a bikini, and you at a “party” in a less than a usually frequented “joint” by Lawyers, Bankers, and other “Vice Presidential Prospects”! Just a thought.

I’m not really criticizing you, BUT seriously, ADD TWENTY FIVE YEARS to your think process when you pose for or post a picture that can be an ALBATROSS around your career neck in the future, NOT today.

Pick up the phone and call, send a pix to a “BF” or what ever the lingo is, but why share it  with literally MILLIONS of people you DON’T KNOW!!! To do with as they see fit!

Just a thought, but that’s today’s “thought of the day”.

-30-

August 7, 2017