My latest Dallas Morning News column, this one about the mentality of entitlement that I, and most of my generation and beyond, grew up with -- and how that may all be about to come to an end. Here's how it starts:
The day I got my first paycheck in my first post-college job, I walked into my old campus saloon - the gang hardly recognized me in a suit - leaned on the bar and ordered a Heineken. Not a pitcher of whatever watery suds were on sale to the penurious undergraduates, whose wretched lot I shared only a few weeks earlier. Nope, I asked for an imported brand. And you know, for once I didn't have to worry about it.That was 20 years ago. I don't know when I drank my last actual Heineken, but in a way, I've been a Heineken man ever since. That is, though I've never known wealth in my working life, I've also never had to do without, not in any serious way. There has always been money for Heineken. Live that way long enough, and you begin to think that the easy availability of Heineken is the natural order of things.
My father, he drinks whatever's on sale and doesn't care. That's his way. He was a child of the Great Depression. When I was a senior in high school, I tasted my first Heineken in, no kidding, Holland (cheap flights, a strong dollar - ah, 1984). When Daddy was a senior in high school, he installed the first indoor plumbing in his family's house.
Same planet, different worlds.
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Great thread; wasn't going to post, don't have much to say, but it's good to "see" Rod and some old names. Ironically, while I'm working through a lot of very difficult personal/family issues currently, thank God my work has been very stable and doesn't appear likely to be impacted by the downturn unless something very major changes.
I agree with Franklin's emphasis on "what we do"; what's striking to me is noting the differences in my own disposition towards work in general and the perspective of my peers, and younger folks in their 20's and 30's. There really doesn't seem to be enough curiosity in our society. While I love splitting wood and have acquired all sorts of oddball life/professional skills over the years, from forklift driving to small business accounting to high level project management, I have always just felt in my bones the lessons of my grandma, who went through the depression and pretty much raised me: learn skills, acquire tools, get to know the ins and outs of your place, treat people well, present yourself with respect, and you'll be OK no matter the times.
That's certainly seemed to be the case for me, in part because of the paucity of the competition. I'm continually struck by how many folks (fellows, I'm mostly thinking of) simply can't succeed professionally because they just don't know how, for lack of a better term, to "play the game".
Bless,
Doug
Well-known beers made by big companies are usually pretty nasty. Guinness is the closest to an exception that I can think of, and I think that's overrated. I could list some good English beers, but you'd probably never have heard of them. I had some good beers in the USA as well, though - bottled "Boston lagers" - so it's doubly difficult to see why anyone would praise Heineken. I don't know Dutch beer well, but, in terms of countries, I think Flemish beer is maybe the best.
"About Guinness-the stuff is absolutely delicious in Ireland.Here though it's barely potable."
If that's the case, O Lord help me if I ever get to Ireland! I love the stuff here (and the great joke above too).
As was said above, learn to make your own darn beer. It will be better than all the mega-commercial brands.
Other folks have spoken of being two generations out from the skill of installing indoor plumbing.
Folks, it ain't that hard to do.
Thanks for the warm welcomes, all. MI, thank goodness we didn't lose our luggage. Mainly because we moved en masse as a unit, and physically moved every benighted piece of it ourselves, from points A to G, and all points between, with a couple backtracked for good measure. Sigh. The duffles become ridiculously heavy once you add full body armor and four plates.
Guinness is also my favorite. I think it tastes like chocolate.
It's only slowly sinking in that I am really back. I went for a run out to the nature trail yesterday. It was sunny, about 33, half the snow was melted. Some of the trees still had leaves, as this last frost and subsequent snow were fairly precipitous. It was beautiful. I finally stopped to take in the view. And, for the first time in a very long time, I heard silence. My ears were ringing from it. I could make out the very quiet sound of a tiny creek at my feet, and some Canada geese out on the pond, and once or twice a diesel shifting down Route 26 about two miles away. Other than that, silence. It was amazing.
There isn't ever any quiet in Iraq, as everything runs on generators, plus there's the noise of air conditioners, computer servers, traffic, the firing range, helicopters, and even the occasional thing blowing up. I think it may be part of the reason some of us get so unbalanced. There's no quiet.
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