My Son, Conrad

So my son has come for a visit and now he’s left. What happened to the little boy who thought I hung the moon?

The employment situation is not good right now. He has a job, but it’s not what he spent all those years in college learning how to do. We try to talk about his future, and he lets me know my ideas are not at the top of his list of things to try.

I’ve lived a long time. I’ve done lots of different jobs. It’s usually not what you know, but who you know. Taking a job as a Physics teacher in a private school in a town with an aerospace company seems a good step for an aerospace engineer who ultimately wants to work in his engineering field. No, he says, if he teaches, it will be in a northern state with a union.

The goal is not to teach, it’s to make connections. But what do I know? I’ve only survived for several decades. I give up. Young people today don’t want advice. They want quick fixes. All this damned technology has made them think nothing should take any time and that there should be one click and you’re done.

I give up.