Slobovian
Realizations come upon us, don't they. Mine came winter 1978, February and March after I retired from the Navy, and into spring, April, May. I was starting a new business. Me, just me alone, as all my life I detested having a boss, a supervisor, an aversion to someone telling me what to do. There are reasons for that, as my brother and sister can attest, and I know that now, why, what they are, realization clarifying in late middle age and old age. Not clear then, but It stirred in me in my couple months or so before retiring from the Navy, of going for job interviews here and there, Chicago, New York, Washington, when I realized that the positions for which I was interviewing, more to see what I liked than to see who liked me, they all had superiors, that I would have a boss or bosses, which was a total turn-off for me.
Yes, I'd had superiors all my twenty Navy years, but it seldom bothered me because for the most part, with a couple of exceptions that I resolved to my satisfaction, my Navy bosses either were good people and fun to work with, or, because of my Navy specialty, my bosses had been hundreds or a thousand miles away and local bosses left me to do my job and hadn't bothered me.
But my peculiar aversion to being bossed, supervised, is not the realization I'm talking about, that's not what's in my awareness this morning.
That winter and spring of 1978, after seeing I didn't want to work for anyone, I was setting myself up as what in retrospect I'll grandly call an international business consultant. Have I told this before? I don't remember. No matter, I'll sketch it out now. In my last two Navy jobs, I'd had a responsibility first for policies and then for practice, action, in what was then called "offset". Specifically, when the Australian government and the Canadian government bought major weapons systems, ships, aircraft, torpedoes, from American defense manufacturers through the US Navy, they acquired a right to have 25% of the value of their acquisition "offset" - - sourced back to help develop defense manufacturing jobs and capabilities in their own country. At the time it wasn't working for them because nobody knew how to make it work. American defense manufacturers didn't know how to, nor were they interested in, sourcing parts in Australia and Canada. And Canadian and Australian defense manufacturers had no idea how to develop business in America. So I stepped into a vacuum to help both sides. My clients turned out to be the Canadian Department of Industry, Trade & Commerce, the Australian Department of Defence, the U S Navy, and various American and Australian defense manufacturers. In fairly short order I was traveling fully eighty percent of my time, around the U S, in Canada, and especially to and from Australia, such that I couldn't keep it all straight and I incorporated and I had to take on a partner in Philadelphia, and, upon being notified that my company. had been selected for IRS audit, get a CPA in Harrisburg - - whose first pronouncement on looking at my financial records was "You guys are going to jail".
Fortunately, he got us straightened out and ever since then, that was 1980, my religion has been to believe in CPAs and lawyers.
But I'm still not to my realization. Our home in Harrisburg was finished to our specifications. What is called "creekside" bordering the Conodoguinet Creek, it was three floors: top floor four bedrooms that I had changed to three, and two baths. Middle floor entry hall, living room, dining room, kitchen with eating area, family room. Ground floor walkout looking on the creek, large rec room for our teenagers, bathroom, two bedrooms looking on the back yard and creek, and laundry room. Under the garage, a full basement storage room that also housed the fuel oil tank. Malinda and Joe had the ground level. Tass, Linda and I had the second floor, and when I retired from the Navy I converted the extra bedroom to my office, looking out on the front yard.
In my office I had shelves, desk, working table, couple of chairs, one of which is here in my den/office/study beside me as I type, file cabinets, a teletype machine. No internet in those days, the teletype was for dealing with clients, and it drove me crazy by starting up noisily every Sunday evening as business and government opened up the workweek with Monday morning in Australia. A year or so after starting my business I was offered the position of adjunct professor of political science at the Univ of West Florida, teaching two graduate courses in defense acquisition management started by an asst secretary of defense who was tired of teaching the courses; and I added that to my schedule. A couple more years on I started full time classes at Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg, and basically ended up working three full time vocations. When I graduated seminary and was ordained I continued all until called to Trinity Church, Apalachicola, when I gave up everything but the church.
But on to the realization. I was soon swamped with paperwork of work in progress, projects waiting to be started, finished work that needed to be filed away, things to mail, paper to take to my partner for our weekly meeting in Philadelphia. I didn't understand why I was so overwhelmed and swamped with paper and my office such a disaster until I realized that all my Navy years I'd had secretaries when I was on shore duty, which was most of it, and sailors when I was at sea, to keep paper moving, clear, neat, filed, dispatched. My realization was that I'm a slob. Years ago In the Li'l Abner comic strip we had met the Lower Slobovians, and now entering middle age, I was 42, I realized that I am one.
Yes, I have fought it. My battles in life that I'm willing to confess are my fights with weight and with slovenliness. Ongoing, the battle never ends. I'm not going to show you a picture of my bathroom, but this
is a picture of the wrought iron cart that serves as the chairside table here in my study this morning. There's a neat spot only because the butterfly coaster doesn't have a mug of coffee on it at the moment. And there's a dozen of my old car models lined up neatly on the windowsill against the shutters.
Me. This is what Linda deals with.
Take me or leave me.
T