Part I: The Way Mike Worked

The Laramie County Public Library kicks off the fall with the Smithsonian exhibit, "The Way We Worked." Sponsored here by Wyoming Humanities, the exhibit "engages viewers with a history of work." It opens Sept. 22 and runs through Nov. 13. Grand opening is a "Hands-on History Expo" on Sept. 28 where you can "dial a rotary phone, draw water with a hand pump, enjoy old-fashioned refreshments (make your own ice cream!) and much more." You can see antique tractors, a wheat-washing machine and an old-fashioned library card catalog. 

This is what libraries are for -- education and fun. Reading itself is a joy. Those facts alone are a bulwark against the Trumpists' war on truth, learning, creativity, and the free press. So come out to the library this fall and see what it was really like when your grandparents were kids. Dial a rotary phone. Man, I want to do that as it's been awhile. Wonder what memories that will provoke? And the library asks us for our memories, stories about what kind of work our forebears did, what we do (or did) for a living, what we want to do when we grow up. 

Some grow up knowing what they want to do with their lives. They are the lucky ones or the cursed ones, depending on how it all works out. Should I follow a predictable path, or take the road less traveled? Nothing more quickly provokes an eye roll from a high school grad than the question, "So what are your plans?" You can really punk your elders with wise-ass replies. I don't have any plans. I'm going to surf/snowboard until someone comes along and offers me a job. What's a plan?

I remember my elders asking similar questions at my 1969 high school graduation. What you going to do, Mike? I replied that I was attending the University of South Carolina in Columbia on a Navy ROTC scholarship and major in marine biology. I would serve my term as a naval officer, hopefully in places close to good surf spots. I then would become a marine biologist with a job close to good surfing spots. Oh yeah, I was going to get married, too, to my high school steady although maybe I wouldn't say that out loud because we hadn't discussed it yet. I was going to play serious basketball pick-up games as long as I could.

I really had no basis for any of this. Except the surfing part -- that I really loved. I loved the ocean, too, as a place that produced waves for me to ride. Did I spend my free time studying the ocean currents and plant/animal life? Did I dream of seagoing adventures on famous oceanography vessels? 

Where was my passion?

I read. I loved books. Some of my favorite novels were set on the ocean, those about Captain Horatio Hornblower, for instance. I devoured the novels written by Alistair MacLean, specifically "HMS Ulysses" and "Ice Station Zebra." I read books about World War II, my father's war. I read historical fiction and sci-fi and mysteries. I was an omnivore, reading-wise. I read the cool books, ones that people talked about such as "Catch-22," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,"  "Slaughterhouse Five." I wondered about the authors, how they got their start, how they sat down at a desk and typed all day. I never met a living author. I knew they existed but none of them came to my hometown, as far as I knew. None of them ever visited my small Catholic high school.

I had a clear picture of the ocean and the ships that sailed upon her. I had no clear idea of the world of writing. Thing is, I was much more attracted to the latter than the former. But how do you tell your Depression-era and WWII parents that you want to do something as ethereal as writing for a living? My father was an accountant with a well-stocked library. My mother was a nurse who read all of the time. My parents birthed nine children, and I was the eldest and the one who was supposed to be an example to them all. We did not grow up poor but budgets were always tight. My father bought breakfast cereal and macaroni-and-cheese by the case at the precursor of Sam's Club. My mother cooked fifties dishes, such as tuna casserole, that I never want to see again. My father changed jobs a lot and my mother worked, a rarity at the time. 

So I had to plan my own trajectory. And how did that work out? 

Stay tuned for details in my next installment of "The Way Mike Worked" series. Coming soon!