What do you do ....

[Rhondazvous]

I'm retired due to disability. But I have worked as a telephone salesman, various jobs at a major regional supermarket chain, and as a library assistant.

Soccer is my main interest (fan: Premier League, MLS, USMNT/USWNT, NWSL, NCAA). But I enjoy local politics. Monthly there is a meeting for councils of some of the neighborhoods of the City, where they bring in City representatives and officers to talk about everything from bike lanes to a huge gondola project (think "Oregon Health & Science University") that may be in the works...oh, and, do an extent, the Charger stadium (though that's in a different council district).

I admire a person who doesn't give up living because of  a disability.

---

I'm a bit of a sad case.

I'm educated in electronics and worked in the field as a technician for a few years. Then I moved and couldn't find a job in electronics so I became a bum. Then I joined the US Ar Force and pretended to be an an electronics genius (because compared to my peers, I was). Then I got out after ten years and trained to be a scuba instructor and a US Coast Guard boat captain. I lived the life other people dream about. I won't deny that it was fun but it was hollow. Like Leslie Neilson's character, Frank Drebin said in The Naked Gun, "It's like drinking a can of Draino. Sure, it'll clean you out. But it'll leave you feeling hollow inside". So I turned to internet activism in the cause of atheism. I left the scuba business and became a captain running a small tour boat through the Florida Keys section of the Everglades National Park. Medical issues related to my alcoholism in conjunction with a car accident prevented me from renewing my Coast Guard license so I ended up in Phoenix with my ex-wife. Well, not really an ex as we didn't officially divorce even after 20+ years of separation.

Now, I'm an old man (20 days from 56 as of this post) living with my ex (sort-of) wife on her charity and studying to be a free-lance website designer.

It makes my (sort-of) ex-wife happy and she's an RN doing good things for humanity so I have some small sense of accomplishment. What I would really like though is to do something that future generations could remember me by. I don't care about any official recognition. I couldn't care jack about that. I just want to be able to say to myself when I'm laying on my death bed that I did something that mattered.

I really, really want that. I don't care if it's collecting the garbage that allowed my betters to do something I'm not capable of. I just want to make a difference.

56? You're not old until you bend down to tie your shoelaces and say, "Now let me see, what else can I do while I'm down here?"

You're not a sad case unless you sit back and accept that's what you are.