30 Years in a Week

A week from tomorrow I'll have achieved the milestone of 30 years employment at one company. I could retire in a week at age 51 for between 1/4 and 1/3 of my salary. I have no intention of retiring anytime soon, but that is a good feeling. Sitting out on the back deck looking at the new master bedroom suite being installed and enjoying a beautiful evening. There are a lot worse ways that life can go!

Things like 30 years have a way of making one think back, and the symetry of "the 8's" for me is interesting when I think about it. From '68, when I was 11 at this time of the year and turned 12 in the fall, I recall having a painted turtle that we called "snappy turtle" at the time they were talking about Robert Kennedy's assassination. I recall that a little, but one of my most favorite memories from childhood was that Christmas eve when we were over and my Aunt and Uncle's home where they had COLOR TV! ( I bought my first color TV the 2nd year of my now 30 year career, in '79). I was mesmerized as Apollo 8 circled the moon and read from the book of Genisis. For a science and areospace interested boy raised in a fundamentalist church, there was a lot of symbolism going on there. During my career, James Lovell, the pilot on that mission and the commander of the ill-fated but "successful failure" Apollo 13" came and talked at an inventors breakfast that I was invited to, which was a great memory of my work years. So 40 years ago is a solid memory.

30 years ago I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire and started my career. Everything I owned at the time was moved down in my new Datsun 200SX. We had a gas crisis that summer as gas went about .50 a gallon for the first time in history, and people were complaining about high prices and how "it was always going to go up". Wow, times have really changed in 30 years! I started out at the princely sum of $15K a year which was a high salary that expanded rapidly as inflation took off like a rocket--the salary expanded, but the take-home really didn't as taxes were not indexed for inflation in those days and the biggest beneficiary of my raises was the Government. Even with all those tax dollars, Jimmy Carter felt strongly that a "great malaise" had settled over the nation and our best years were behind us.

By '88, morning in America had come and I was a new father. It was a very dry year, and it was the first time that I went fishing with the core of the current fishing trip gang. It was also an election year and Bush 41 would take the reins from by far the best President of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan. I will be very surprised if we have another President while I draw breath that even comes close. So '88 was a memorable year.

I don't think there was so much about '98 that stands out. We shipped Java, which I hope isn't the last big successful project of my career. We had already moved to our current home 3 years before. The thing that seems crazy is that 10 years ago doesn't even seem long - in fact, it is hard to believe that '98 is already 10 years back. I suspect that is a common sense for those of us advancing in years just a bit.

Guess that is enough reminiscing for one night. I may be prone to do a bit more of that with the upcoming anniversary.