Long Ago...

Long ago, I had hoped to put my slim abilities as a writer to use. I had hoped to mate them with my paltry photographic skills and become a photo-journalist. I took classes as such, until the almighty cost of schooling became my nemesis. So, I put education on the back burner and began seeking a trade. I was a pretty good KOA Kampground person. I made a fair gas station clerk. I thought I had promise as a sandwich artist at one time. I even managed to work at a pet store.

I eventually managed to locate a job at a mill and then at a photography studio where I ran machines that developed other people's pictures. I returned to the mill. There I managed to work for a few years until one day I got poked in the eye and decided that mill work was unsafe. Finally, people around me convinced me that since I liked history so much, maybe I should become a teacher. I put some thought into it. Well, a little (since I am lazy, and a little says a lot). I decided that, yes, that might be a good idea. Certainly it has less potential for parting me with my parts than working in a mill with cutting edges all around.

So, here I am, about 8 years later. I am a substitute teacher. I enjoy subbing, while looking for a full time job as a history teacher. Recently, I signed up with a couple other districts and have been happy as a clam and busy as a beaver. Though my old district seems to find it difficult to let me get the other jobs. I don't mind.

Today, I am to work at one of those other districts. This one does not use the on-line program that the other two use. They call subs. I got a call the other day asking me if I would sub there. I said ,"sure!" The lady told me I needed to be there at 7:15am. I thought I'd make sure I was there on time and showed up at 7:10am. She looked at me and asked when she had told me to be there. I said, "715." "Oops! I forgot this week was conference week! You are two hours early!" So, I walked back out to the truck and came home. So, here I sit waiting a little longer to go to work. On the bright side I will get a little more caffeine in my system than I would have otherwise...still, it may make for a longer day.

I have been ruminating on a post for my other site for two weeks now. I want to make it a particularly involved one, since it seems to invite more than just a cursory inspection. Usually the accidents I deal with are from sparse documents of reports. This one, however, came with some forty or more pages of report. Then, if that weren't enough, I got a second report on the same aircraft...slightly smaller, but mostly different info than the first. Given my fondness for the Boeing B-29, of which the aircraft that crashed was an example, I decided to work a little harder on it. I have thus been digesting various texts concerning this WWII behemoth of the air and its gigantic engines, trying to decide the best way to approach this crash. So, while I keep mentioning it on Facebook and in e-mails, the article is still in its infancy. Awaiting final development, it sits in my computer, stirring slightly.

Given this weekend's complex schedule, I may not finish it this weekend either. So, it will have to wait forlornly for me to write it a few more days. And so it seems that I am still managing to put my writing skills, poor though they are, into some semblance of use. So, that long ago dream of writing may not have been given up for dead. It may have transformed some, but it is still there...even if I am not getting paid (monetarily) for it, the personal satisfaction I derive from comments and letters I receive concerning the blog I write about aircraft losses in Washington State seem to make it worth the effort.