Opportunities

We had a nice evening with Jim and Ylda a while ago. We discussed when Jim was younger and all the men in his life who helped him along the way. It struck me that I didn’t have any of that and how it affected my life.

I don’t want the following to be about feeling sorry for myself. I’m not whining either because there are a lot more people who grew up like me and who have it way worse than me. I did okay!

But for me the story is interesting, so here goes.

I left school on a Friday at age fifteen. I started work on the following Monday at a large grocery store.

Our school “career advisers” found the job for me and that was it. I had little or no say. It was normal that when you left school you got a regular job or an apprenticeship. Either way, you were expected to pay toward your keep. I was raised by a single Mum so my wage was important to help her with the household expenses. So I started work.

I didn’t think beyond that, as my Mum was single and my Dad left home when I was eight. My Mum was fifty-eight when I left school. It didn’t occur to me to try for an apprenticeship and there was no one to push me in that direction.

The silly thing about this is, if the “career advisors” had looked at my school records they would have seen that I was excellent at wood and metalwork. So I wonder why they didn’t steer me into an apprenticeship. It could have changed everything.

My three brothers had left home earlier to get away from our Dad’s abuse. Our family was ostracised by the rest of the clan because of it, so I only saw an uncle or aunt occasionally, maybe once a year. Then my brothers all got married so I grew up with no male guidance.

If you were a poor kid in our school system you were ignored and not expected to go anywhere in the world. I think they equated poor financially with poor intelligence.

So life went on and I went from job to job but always working. Eventually, I moved to Nottingham, met my first wife, had my daughter and emigrated.

When I arrived in Canada, I carried on as usual as I didn’t know then that I could have gotten an apprenticeship even at the age of twenty-four. As far as I knew, once I left school, that was my only chance.

I didn’t stay at one company for more than about five years before I quit and went somewhere else. I have no idea why I bounced around like that (probably my quick temper however I was only fired once). Anyway, I was always working.

I’ve mostly been in the burglar alarm industry so my greatest claim to fame is when I was installation manager with a staff of fifty and a three million dollar operating budget. That only ended after a personality clash with my boss; it wasn’t because of my quick temper though.

I have little regrets about how my life turned out. While sitting that evening with Rosalie, Jim and Ylda, as well as the previous day with Peter and Suzie, I realized that I wouldn’t change moments like that with friends for any amount of money.

As I’ve said before, while sipping a margarita on the beach in Melaque “How the hell did a welfare kid like me get to be in this beautiful place?”