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I Am 73 Years Old. If I Can Make It, You Can Too.
And I survived the 1960s; graduated high school in Seattle in 1967. I survived the 1970s; graduated from college in 1971. Drove halfway across the country in my mother’s 1962 Chevy II, which broke down in rural Montana. Graduated with a Masters in Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1973; got married in July of 1973. Returned to Seattle in 1974, hubby got a job as a transformer winder, I finally got a job as pricing clerk in the pharmacy at the big public hospital. I waited in long gas lines in that Chevy II. Spent 10 years as a hospital pharmacy technician. We bought our first house in 1977, for $33,000, at about a 13% interest rate. I survived the 1980s, inflation, Carter, and very high income taxes. Hubby and I had to file at the higher single rate and have extra withheld from both of our paychecks to satisfy our tax obligation. We survived. I quit work, went back to school at community college, got a job in my new field.
Divorced in 1991. My job lasted all of nine months before the company went belly-up, and I was back on the street with no income and a pittance in unemployment compensation since I had been in school. For two years, I worked temp jobs to supplement the unemployment. Finally got another job. Bought a condo with the proceeds from my half of the house. Job only lasted five months before the company laid off half their staff. I now had no job, a newly-minted mortgage, and tiny unemployment. I could not find any kind of work in a new field, so I renewed my pharmacy tech license and got a job at a local health clinic. My first winter in the new condo (which had individual space heaters in each room), one of those heaters broke, and I froze until I could find a replacement and persuade a friend to install it.
In 1993, I finally got a full-time job that lasted. Whew! Lived on a shoestring, survived the 1990s. Well, until 1999. That year: my mother died, I had knee surgery, and I got a bad case of Coxsackie virus where I could not eat or talk for two weeks. But I survived the 1990s.
Met Ray at a party in 2000, re-met in 2001 at same party, started dating. I was working all this time, but had gotten laid off at least twice and found new jobs. We got married in 2003. The decade of the 2010s was incredibly prosperous for us both. Then came 2020. The aerospace economy tanked, and we were both out of jobs. But we have both survived.
And you will, too. The world looks very dark and forbidding right now, with war, food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and gas prices; riots, gun-control, and DemocRats around every corner doing their best to destroy America.
But we will survive. You do what you have to do to get through, and you get through.
Of course, having your Ricochet Family in your corner helps a great deal, doesn’t it? Onward!
Published in Culture
Onward indeed. No other way to go. There is no standing still. There is no going back.
Quit a story. I just had to survive 60 chaotic days on an aircraft carrier in late 1972. Been mostly smooth sailing since then with only a few setbacks. Live living in homeless central. Love your posts. Looks like Seattle, where our youngest lived for 12 years, almost as bad as San Fran. And the Dems will lose Congress this year. So I agree; I think we will survive.
May God bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you and bring you peace.
Amen.
Yes, we all have our stories, those who are able, overcome. You did, and I
suspectbelieve anyone here who subscribes did too. Hurrah! That is the story and legacy of America. I occasionally think I might be special, until I read the stories, accomplishments, and experiences of my fellow Ricochetti. Wow. In reality, I am but the flea who tries to bite the leg of the ant, who climbs onto the elephant. A nothing.But I matter in my world, in my family, and neighborhood. But “The World” will not really take notice of my existence.
I do appreciate and honor the members here who have and will in the future, shape and guide our culture, society & norms, for the better.
We all need YOU for our future to survive.
I like you attitude, Babe.
So do I. It strikes me that Conservative women are so much stronger than Lefties. We don’t need an army of angry feminists with hairy armpits behind us, no!
Excelsior, Babe.
Thanks for the always-needed perspective!
We survive until we don’t.
Indeed. And Happy Birthday!
Very best wishes of the day from one who is about 3 years behind you, and has had a lot better luck. There’s nothing else I can attribute my relatively easy life to; certainly no merit or planning on my part.
It’s not RushBabe’s birthday.
EDIT: A reasonable assumption based on the text, but more details are here.
Or perhaps we do. Personally, I am encouraged to think we survive after we don’t, by faith and physics: the Christian tradition and the law of conservation of matter and energy.
Dang, I missed that post in April and didn’t get to wish you both a happy birthday. Happy belated birthday.
@rushbabe49 is a positive thinker and strong person, much like the Rush she listened to. Good marriages also help us through rough times. One reason the younger folks struggle, I think, is their priorities in life are backwards.
You have a decade on me, and my life has been free of most of the terrible things that can happen. Come to think of it, most of the struggles and suffering I have had were due to my own quirks and decisions.
Even so, I do stop sometimes to reflect on the fact that whatever I have faced, I’ve made it through, and life is good. It’s important to remember that.
That’s pretty much all of us. You realize it. That’s an important step.
Having an accordion in the home always provides the greatest motivation to face yet another day!
Am I the only one who finds it somewhat liberating to address a lady as “Babe?”
And I didn’t even mention Ray’s knee replacement, and my recent re-injury of my bad knee, which might mean another surgical repair. And my temp job ends this week so I go back into retirement.
Next weekend we go to Leavenworth for the International Accordion Celebration which was canceled by state Covid restrictions in 2020 and 2021.
Ain’t none of us getting out of this alive. But, until then, we do what we can in our own little corner of this journey called ‘Life’.
Yep, the 16th. It took a 7.4 earthquake in Seattle to shake me loose. The April 13, 1949 earthquake was very destructive.
Mine’s 28th. My mom’s was 19th, she was 17 when I was born at Chanute Air Base in Rantoul, Il. I was 9#7oz., so I was my own earthquake!
As Walt Kelly used to say, don’t take life too serious… it ain’t nohow permanent.
Rantoul. My granduncle used to run a hardware store there.
Are you kidding? Good Lord, don’t you realize that Friday the Thirteenth falls on a Monday this month?
God’s plan is beyond our comprehension. Even some results of COVID-19 were positive!