I selected a week when my daughter would be here to help throw hay and feed on the truck since Larry came to pick up the Gator and the lawn mower. Larry was originally my feed man, then he sold his feed store and became my lawn and garden fixer upper. He had a shop in Bryan, Texas.
Some good things aren't meant to be and he moved his shop out to his house in the country. He still kept the business by picking up 3 wheelers, mowers, etc. He said they weren't bothered by people just stopping by the shop in town to talk. They couldn't get their work done and, rather than being rude, he just moved his shop.
His shop was called We Fix It .
So, today he came and picked up my Gator which I feed from and my lawn mower to give both a tune up, greasing and blade sharpening. His daughter is studying and finishing up as a finance major at the Mays school at TAMU. My daughter Virginia also graduated from there several years back with a Masters in Finance.
He asked a lot of questions about the field since it was foreign to him. He got a lot of good information about job opportunities and future clubs to belong to at TAMU. It's really amazing the job openings available even in this economy that pay extra good wages. Why would anyone pay a fortune for a 4 year college to study English or mathematics. Their job scope seems to limited to teaching.
Coming from a small town and being a female, it was always understood that women became teachers and men could become lawyers or doctors. To buck the norm was to upset tradition. I always wanted to become a lawyer but my mother wouldn't have any of it. Even now, at 70+, I still would have wanted to be a lawyer. Of course, they have such a horrible, money grubbing reputation but my ideas of a lawyer then were lofty and I saw them as a benevolent Perry Mason.
Even in this horrible economy and uncertainty of the country, there are surprisingly well paying jobs in the investment or banking sector. Consulting is also a thriving business despite the downturn in the economy. Some layoffs have happened and business may have slowed but there's plenty of opportunities and one has to be aware of the market.
I find myself completely perplexed in today's world. We never heard of the myriad of job opportunities. Coming from a little town of under 5,000 people, all we knew was nursing and teaching and secretarial jobs. You could enter those areas for a "secure" future.
Where do you find out about them? I believe it's in exposure and maybe a lot of luck. My friend's daughter is studying nuclear medicine? She met a man who was in that field while in high school. She began to study the field when she left high school and now is doing an internship in her freshman year of college. She continues to love the field and is hoping to start at a salary of over $100,000.
Why am I so focused on salaries? Well, it's kinda like a starving kid is thinking about nothing but food or water. With the downturn in dividends from stocks and bonds and with no other conceivable income in sight, there's an awe of these opportunities which will never come my way because of lack of "retraining" or age restriction.
My first field was journalism. It was an idealistic profession. Back then, it wasn't a political statement but just plain old interviewing and reporting events as they took place. What an ideal time.
I could use my photography skills. Today, it's all digital. So, I'd have to learn a whole new system. We used to spend days on a page layout of copy and photographs and headlines. Type setting was made with metal letters or numbers. Now, you do a computer layout and the type settings and columns are all arranged on a word program.
That's progress. We must adapt or be run out of our field. Like a warrior with a spear would have to adapt to a gun for hunting or defense.
Where do the older folks go? Can we change? I think I've come a long way but just when I'm about to compliment myself, up comes something really new. Some (lots of it), I don't even know what it is. IPad, iPhone, Blue Tooth, etc...
Stop the world, I want to get off.
Back to the days where there was a prince and princess and they lived happily ever after. Simple days.
"Goodnight sweet prince! Goodnight."
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