I am no longer a unicorn. You probably did not know I ever was one, but I was working on it. A growth on my forehead these past few months was removed yesterday by the beautiful skin cancer doctor. Now I have a dent instead of a horn.
Yesterday was the first time I have seen the doctor’s face in several years, since the start of COVID. I am pleased to report that she is as beautiful as I remembered, as well as being an excellent doctor.
I worked as a life guard in college, at an indoor YMCA pool in the winters, at a big outdoor pool in a St. Louis suburb in the summers. I was paid the then minimum wage of $1.25 per hour. In the summers the pool was open six days a week and we usually worked more than forty hours and got time and a half for those beyond forty. During the week there were three of us and we worked an hour on, a half hour off. On weekends the pool hired a fourth guard and we worked a half hour on, a half hour off. Over three summers on my breaks I completed correspondence courses for my second year of French from the University of Wisconsin and two philosophy courses—Aesthetics and Comparative Religion—from the University of California. And I got married just before Christmas of my senior year on the money I saved from my enormous wages.
Seeing life guards on the beach here at Lake Forest caused me to wonder what life guards get paid now. I googled and find the range is $15-$18 an hour. I then went to an online inflation calculator to learn what $1.25 an hour in 1960 would be worth today. The answer: $12.88. I was underpaid! Thank goodness for those big $1.87 overtime hours. The cumulative rate of inflation from 1960 to 2023 is 930.8%.
I came across a reference to Dostoyevsky’s novel, THE POSSESSED, and decided to read it. I have his collected works in a Kindle edition. So I started and when after 150 pages nothing had happened I quit. I think there were about 600 more pages to go. I am too old to waste that much time. I started rereading Conrad’s UNDER WESTERN EYES instead. Much better.
I came across multiple references this morning to a recent study that predicts that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system will collapse this century, perhaps as soon as 2025. Another reason to be glad not to be young.
5 comments:
Hi Web, Just saw a picture of you with Steve Earley in SAIL magazine August/September issue on page 54. I believe you scooped them quite a while ago, posting the same picture here! Nice article on Steve!
Steve had told me that article was coming. I have not seen it, but he certainly deserves to be written about.
"a recent study that predicts that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system will collapse this century, perhaps as soon as 2025."
But other researchers say the timing is impossible to predict.
Time will tell -- I know who my money is on.
Thanks, Duncan. I did not catch ‘Skies’ and have made the correction.
Webb, that's a great memory and accurate observation. It made me remember my highschool lifeguarding days. First paid work for an employer, though I grew up farming. I felt happy and free to buy lunches at a hotdog stand and my first big luxury was buying a tshirt from Belk with my own earnings. I feel like my happiness quotient was higher then than in this season of life as an adult engineer. That's not lost on me!
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