Tuesday, August 1, 2017

What ever could I be???

It feels like some people come out of the womb with a purpose.  Not I.  I don't remember ever having an answer for that old chestnut "what do you want to be when you grow up".  Two problems really, first either I have never grown up (or it happened sometime around the age of 13), or I have never known what I wanted to be.
I like acting, but the chances of a making career out of that are slim.  So it's a hobby I love doing it but it is very unlikely it would ever go beyond that.  I also really like making funny voices, and have a passable villains laugh, but I don't think that really qualifies me for voice acting as I also have a slight lisp that I can't seem to break.  

So what else?

Well my first job was as a nursing assistant.  I was really good at it. Strong enough for the heavy manual labor. Enough empathy to take the needed time to listen and give the residents the one thing they really need, company.  The empathy part was a problem though.  I quickly learned that old people are just like young people except with bodies that aren't working as well.  The person behind those eyes doesn't change much whether they are 21 or 81.  It was an interesting experience. By the time I was 18 I had grown to love at least four patients who died.   I was responsible for attending to the body of one of these individuals on the night she passed away.  Her name was Edna, In the time that I knew her I would always spend the extra time with Edna listening to her share about her life, washing her socks so that they would be clean the next day.  She died the day after her 100th birthday.  She was a wonderful person and I am better for having known her.  Death takes it's toll on the living though.  This is actually why I left nursing and went back to school, I couldn't handle meeting amazing people to only have them taken away so soon.

So what would I be if not a professor?  I would have maybe done this thing I have dreamt of.  Opening a retirement community that incorporated farming, and childcare into a multi generational living situation.  Where people from many life stages would live together.
Paying for childcare is a hardship for many young families.  Our society has come to a place where the traditional methods of child care have become inconvenient.  Family often live far away, while both parents need to have full time jobs in order to pay their bills. This I think is largely due to wage stagnation for working class jobs.  At the same time child care workers are barely paid a living wage(refer to previous sentence).  A very frustrating issue when you consider the importance of high quality childcare and education to the capacity of our youth and nation.  So parents struggle to pay the bills, keeping child care workers underpaid.  I scoff at the idea that running a good day care is just babysitting.  So try to hit two birds with one stone.  This idea really stems from being in health care, my sister in law being a nurse and knowing that caring for people is a highly rewarding career.  Just one that needs to be modified to provide adequate monetary compensation and dignity for all.

I am reminded of my grandmother Betty Lou on her deathbed, barely capable of anything, she became completely lucid when my niece was placed on her lap.  Betty Lou was able to keep the very active baby from exiting her lap, even scold her for pinching too hard.  Grandmother benefited tremendously from holding baby.  So the idea is that we combine an assisted living facility with a daycare, the elders get a job to do. While the families get a bit of a financial break. Also the children are raised by people who have likely already learned a lot of hard lessons about raising children.  I remember my father in his late 60's saying "you know I think I would do a lot better job now" referring to raising two boys.  This way the elderly benefit from caring for the young. Maybe throw a sustainable farm and restaurant into the whole deal just to achieve the right level of complexity.

I would maybe also like to have a aquaponic farm. I guess that is a nice lead in to my bucket list. Which I tried to claim to  my wife that I didn't have one, and she started listing of stuff that I want to do.  

So the aquaponic farm would be a sustainable lettuce and fish operation in Wisconsin. All to feed the Friday night fish fry.  stopping the flow of fish that primarily comes from the ocean, and defeat the lettuce being trucked from California.

A bicycle tour of Sweden, get bikes ride trains from town to town and have a generally awesome time.

Become a minor real estate tycoon, the company would be called Responsible Landlords.  We would focus on making homes that don't harm the environment by having 80 year old windows and that don't harm tenants by having crazy black mold, lead paint, toxic wasteland basements etc.

Bike from my parents house in Moose Lake up into Superior WI, then back via Duluth, about 120 miles of amazing scenery.

Raise an army of Large Mutant Killer Squirrels to do my bidding and wreak general mayhem.
alternately raise an army of remote control attack chickens.  Either one would really be ok or maybe both.

Spend more time swimming in lakes and rivers. Build more awesome things with legos.  Build a robot.

Spend time with people I like having interesting conversations while drinking and eating delicious things.






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