Where I am going from here? Past is past, and past is prologue.

Photo by Jen Belisle

            Is it fitting that I am blogging today about my particular future on the day that American looks to its future and ushers in a new President and cabinet. The problem is that we cannot erase the past. I wrote in my last post that our past has landed us where we are at, and change is needed if we want to carry on. This is my story of change and where I am headed.

            This year culminates a 31-year journey through undergraduate higher education.  In 2001, while still working for Delphi Corporation, I decided that I would start making plans to not only achieve my undergraduate by my retirement, but also probably end up teaching and working in higher education.  I had worked in the theatre and assumed that at some time my degree would lead to an MFA in theatre.  My next interest besides theatre was the law. I worked part time for Pinkerton Security doing background checks in courthouses all over the state and really enjoyed the people and the work. I loved reading about case law, and took a few paralegal courses. So, I had two rather disparate interests that I felt would never intersect. However, that was when the Internet was in its infancy. Social networking was something you did at parties or singles bars.

            When you ask me what I will do with the rest of my life, the word advocacy keeps coming back to me. What is an actor? A performer? A representative? Then ask what a lawyer does? Advocacy, represent, perform. So without much thinking about it, I lucked into a job that allowed me to do mix advocacy with a touch of theatre.  The job was with IU Kokomo's Office of Communication and Marketing, and I started as a writer. I moved into being a photographer, and press liaison.  After that 2 years I ended up with the understanding that I had become an advocate for information coming out of the school.  How does someone represent an institution, a company, a product, or a group? That is the question I asked myself. The answer was to be an advocate for them in whatever media and form you can.

            I will be going to graduate school eventually, whether it is this year or a couple of years, and I still like the idea of teaching. But one thing is for certain, whether I become a PR practitioner for a school,a non-profit, a company or the ever-vilified lobbyist; I plan on being a good advocate, to represent. My journey is far from complete education wise. My past in the auto industry affects me not only in experiences I can repeat, but also helps me to avoid practices that I saw caused problems to many. It is a new day for me. Though they say past is prologue, I am looking forward, not looking back anymore. My new vocation is to represent those that both want it and need it, with a little theatre thrown in. Good actors know that acting is not lying. Good acting is representing the truth,  passionately, intelligently and thoroughly.

 

 

Behind the Auto Mess, Three Generations of American Values

I was called in my neck of the woods, a “factory rat”. Since graduating high school in 1974 I have worked in some sort of large manufacturing facility; most all of it for the auto industry. Some factory rats, like myself, started taking college courses right off the bat, not so that we could leave the factory for a more lucrative career, but so that we could promote ourselves within the factory hierarchy.  We already had the job of our dreams, why would we leave to become a lawyer or a doctor? When I hired on at the plant, a beginning attorney made a paltry $35,000 a year.  With overtime, I with a high school diploma could make the same money.

We had our own factory community, our own clubs; we even had our own credit union. Sometimes three generations of factory rats all worked together at times in the plant.  Grandparents with high seniority, parents like my father who had worked his way up into engineering and then my generation would all come in at the same time of day. Mother wanted to know why I was wasting my time taking college night classes when I could have picked up an extra shift at time and one half pay in the evenings. Dad did costing for engineering projects and showed what I could make if I would stop taking weekends off and work 7 days straight.

            Then there were the women who worked in the factory. It was the 70’s and I was a 20-year-old single man. Part of the plant was air conditioned, part of it not. In the air-conditioned part the women dressed to the nines. Their hair was perfect. They looked like fashion models. Those women would make my jaw drop. In the hot sweaty part of the factory, more natural looking women wore halter tops with no bras, short shorts and tube tops that would most likely slip down by accident when doing active working, or be pulled down to flash a passerby, like myself. The women in the sweaty part had that Janis Joplin hardness with availability that pervaded our part of the country in the 1970’s. We were all in our 20’s and full of hormones, fueled with drugs and alcohol. And we made more money than professionals that had studied for years. I worked next to a man with his Masters in Library Sciences from Purdue.  We both fixed radio units that came off the line as rejects. Several education students came for the summer then stayed because the money was just too good to turn down, with little responsibility.

            So now, we are retired, underemployed or out of work. The auto industry, as we knew it is decried for its lack of foresight. And the bearer of the brunt of this criticism is the factory worker himself or herself.  In this time of finger pointing, the individuals that made the products, were encouraged by generations preceding them to carry on that mantle of American manufacturing, and stayed the course so to speak by not leaving our now dying communities to seek fortune elsewhere are castigated. We are called dinosaurs, lacking vision and perspective on America’s future.  Politicians use us to point out the auto industries failures; we have become the $65 per hour grass cutters.  I wish I had actually made $65 per hour, but that figure like others was pulled out of the air by the new breed of cannibalistic entrepreneur , most of whom were the architects of the old systems that we as factory workers profited and lived by.

            I saw this coming, which is why I had half of my college finished by the time I retired.  I knew that the old days were gone. I can read a balance sheet. I had many arguments with fellow employees who were convinced by their parents and grandparents that the factories would give them a job for life. I could have left the factories long ago. I didn’t. It was my decision in the end, and that is the bottom line.

But I remember vividly meeting my great aunt, the matriarch of the family who was at my wedding. She came up to me and hugged me, and she said these words that I will never forget. “I’m so glad you made something of yourself and got a good job at the factory.” In this country we talk a lot about getting back to our old values. In reality we need to bury some of our old values in the ground with the founding fathers and never look back.

 

 

A Conversation with Wikipedia about "Blogs"

(Photo by Jennifer Belisle)

 I decided that I would try writing a weekly blog in 2009. For the first one I will discuss the word, “blog” with the best source on these things, Wikipedia.

Ed: So what is a "blog"?

Wikipedia: “A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”

Ed: So now we discover blog is both a noun and a verb. Who originated it?

Wiki: “The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[51] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog.”

Ed: Interesting. I never knew all that. So lets talk about my blog. What I want to do in my blog is to document my life and the way I feel so that people will get to know me a bit better. My life is not necessarily complex, but it is quite busy. It would be nice to let people know about some of the more personal aspects of me, for instance I like to…

Wiki: "The Washingtonienne", blogged about her sex life while employed as a congressional assistant. After the blog was discovered and she was fired,[39] “

Ed: Well maybe just one or two stories about select personal stuff, changing names and…

Wiki: “Cutler is presently being sued by one of her former lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect the privacy of their real life associates.[40]”

Ed: Ok, well, I do like to talk about politics. And freedom of speech about politics is what the Internet is all about. The idea that you can express whatever your political opinion is in any forum…

Wiki: “A college lecturer contributed to a blog in which she referred to a politician (who had also expressed his views in the same blog) using various uncomplimentary names, including referring to him as a "Nazi". The politician found out the real name of the lecturer (she wrote under a pseudonym) via the ISP and successfully sued her for £10,000 in damages and £7,200 costs.[22”

Ed: Well, maybe, but in America you can post anything you want on the Internet without fear of repercussions…

Wiki: “In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of trade secrets in 2005.[23”

Ed: But it is just a post. It’s just my opinions, or the things that have happened to me, that might be relevant somewhere in the world to another person. What harm is posting something on the web, that only a few people will likely see?

Wiki: “Blogging can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. Blogs are much harder to control than broadcast or even print media”

Ed: Oh come on now Wikipedia. I mean just posting my opinions can’t hurt me can it…?

Wiki: “One consequence of blogging is the possibility of attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason.”

Ed: So why should I then write a blog for the whole world to see if I will be in danger of litigation, being ostracized and physical harm to myself?

Wiki: “Scientists have long known the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences. Blogs provide another convenient avenue for writing about personal experiences.”

Ed: I think it might be easier and cheaper to buy a diary. With a lock on it.

The beginning.

 

(All quotes in italics taken from Wikipedia’s page on the word “Blog”. Please support the work of Wikipedia with a donation. Go to http://tinyurl.com/8doex5 for more information.)