As we head into fall I’m always reminded of the Autumn People
Oh thirty-five, a year when you could run up a flight of steps without panting for breath!
Tag: youth
Tom’s World – 23JAN2025 – Rusted Floorboards and All
My 1st couple of years in engineering school (1966-1967) were with a slip stick. A number of years followed spent in the military and civilian employment before I paused my hedonistic lifestyle to complete my degree in Civil Engineering in 1975. When I started back in 1973, slip sticks were gone in favor of calculators. I started off with a $240 (in 1973 dollars!) Bowmar, by current standards, the equivalent of a current $12 scientific calculator. But I quickly gravitated to an HP 45. I can’t remember who I had to kill to get the cash for the over $400 price of the HP 45. I was living and paying all of my bills and food and tuition and books from my $275/month GI Bill and my weekend job pumping beer, shelling oysters and making Reubens at Smokeys Bar for a couple of bucks an hour.
My transportation at the time was a Kawasaki 500 until I got so cold one winter that I paid $100 for a 1962 Valiant with a rusted out floorboard that I covered with a stolen real estate sign to keep my feet from falling through.
Sounds tough but that was the absolute best time of my life.