Semisane

That's `cuz they don't make young geezers.

Underclocked

My money-making was primarily hauling hay until I was 15. 1¢ for 1 bale from the field to the barn. I recall once making $22 in one day. That's a bunch of hay.

In the summer of my 15th year we entered a hayfield of damp alfalfa bales. It was about 100º (maybe a bit over) and the humidity was horrible. Those bales must have weighed 130 to 150 lbs each. I walked out of that field and back to town, never to haul another bale as a means of making money. My talent at pool and snooker was put to use as an "alternate" means of making money and I soon found out that type of"work" was much easier and more rewarding. We were poor as dirt and every penny I could muster was needed.

I did well in school and got a full scholarship to the University of Missouri at Rolla. After having been there for 6 days of class, I decided that college just wasn't for me. This was late 1968, Vietnam was raging and I still had a 2S deferment. I decided to hunt that fall, then pick a branch of service and join up. In March of 69, I joined the US Navy submarine/nuclear program. I volunteered for PBR duty in Vietnam but was told I was too valuable in my designated rate to be put at that much risk. I guess. By late September of that year I started a brief visit to Vietnam and spent 3 months at Yankee Station on the USS Constellation. I found the whole experience interesting, but not at all funny. The remainder of my nearly 8.5 years in the Navy was spent as a nuke submariner (several patrols on an FBM submarine), a recruiter, and finally in a maintenance support facility prior to separation.

After discharge, I went to work at Paul Mueller's in Springfield, MO. After a grand 8 day career there as a journeyman electrician, I decided they were going to kill me if I stayed. Three near-death experiences in 8 days was just too much. OSHA later busted them pretty good for theirmiserable safety practices. I had only taken that job because I wanted to stay in the area of my roots and it did pay well for that time. Meanwhile, I was given definite job offers at Arkansas Nuclear One and at HB Robinson nuclear plant near Hartsville, SC. Since my wife was from SC, that's the job I took.

I did well there but after a little over 3 years and becoming a reactor operator, the nagging lure to come back to Missouri got the better of me. I took a job for Union Electric at their Callaway plant in Missouri. Union Electric absolutely SUCKED as a company and the union employees were just as bad. The rivalry between management and union was something I couldn't tolerate. I was on both sides of that divide while there, but didn't like either. So I called up the folks at my job at Robinson and got my old position back - along with a substantial pay raise. Going back to SC was a good move and again I did very well, becoming a Senior Reactor Operator in very little time.

Once certain elements of my life proved I was never going to get ahead working for a utility, the lure of big money caught up with me. I had turned down job after job offered by head hunters (this was post TMI and demand was incredible for people with my skills). The Robinson plant was operated by Carolina Power and Light - a company with a non-union work force and a great working environment, but that environment had begun todeteriorate with administrative changes that created tension and unfair treatment. When a very reliable, intelligent friend of mine was punished for doing something we had always been expected to do and did routinely - I had decided that was just too much. So I took a contract job in Illinois and did about 5 years of that type work. The last two years was extremely difficult - let me just say that unknowingly the people at Commonwealth Edision had given me near total control of a 6-billion dollar nuclear project.

I'm leaving out a good deal of my personal life because it was mostly a nightmare. My wife then was a holy terror and I later learned had a substantial drug habit which she kept well hidden. That part of my story could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I could never get ahead financially and spent very few happy hours at home. She did things totally beyond belief and later, after she had disappeared in the night with my son and the divorce was final, she had a man murdered in SC. She was released from prison in 2008 - and I think the world is now at greater risk. She was, for a time, Susan Smith's cell mate and best buddy. The woman is a demon if one walks the earth.

I suffered three very serious breakdowns at almost 1 year intervals after her disappearance and further shenanigans. She had taken 153,000 in cash with her when she took off but the only thing that concerned me was my son.

Without the support of the lady that has been my wife for the past 16 years, I would have been lost to insanity or dead. Nita has been my rock. I thank whatever powers that be for her. But my working career is over and has been for some time. My son is now 33, has a wife and two kids, and they come to see us fairly often even though he still lives in SC. He has NOTHING to do with his natural mother.

I do work on computers to raise a few extra bucks, a self-taught wacko but I get calls from folks all over. People seem to think I do an excellent job for them.

alleyyooper

Some good reading here, a nice cross section of work & hard workersbut appears that was learned at an early age by all.

Speaking of farming and kids.
I met this guy At MTU Houghton Michigan. Both our daughters went to school there to be come enginners (mine is a chemist though.).
He owned a farm the family had for about 135 years. The burbs grew up around his farm and made his life a living hell.
They tried sueing him because his cattle moo'd at night. They tried to stop him from spreading manure in his fields. They sued him because their plants would die and calimed wind drift.
He always had people tresspassing on his place to hunt. Then fences started being cut and all that good stuff. One of his neighbours every year was sitting on the fence line bow hunting.
Finally my friend had enough, selling the family farm. It took them a long time to work out the deal as the contractor who bought it had to have 10 homes built along the north fence line by Sept or the contractor forfitted the land.
That happened so the guy sitting on the fence could no longer hunt the fence.

[:@]Got side tracked there. My friend moved to the Beaver Dam Wisconsin area. He hired a couple of high school boys to help get ground ready to plant crops. They would show up late for work or not show up at all. Finally my friend hired this young lady and her girl friend. He was really pleased with how they came to work on time every day, they treated his equipment a lot better than the boys ever did.
He now only hires girls to work for him. He told me last summer it is getting hard to find any one that wants to work on a farm.

Al

spaniel

Go Huskies!

I went to Tech. Four fun years but I'd had enough snow when I left...

I hear you about the issues when the burbs intrude on farms. I have heard those same sorts of issues over and over. The original builder of my current house had an elk farm on the property. Within a few years the rest of the frontage had built up around him. Between the bugling and smell, he soon hated living there so much he gave up and moved.

I let a local farmer winter some cattle on the land to justify my ag zoning, but the first question I got from the neighbors when I moved in was "are you buying any elk?"

marshall9779

I grew up just outside Charlottesville VA. I joined the Navy after I graduated high school. I was a Nuke Machinist Mate on the USS Eisenhower stationed in Norfolk VA. I did my 6 and got out with plenty of college money. I stayed in that area and got my Meachanical Engineering degree from Old Dominion University. Graduated and worked for Stihl, thechainsaw and powertool company, as an assembly line supervisor for a year and a half. My wife who I met in school is from MD and wanted tog back up there, so we moved to Gaithersburg and have been herea little over a year. Now I am working for a company called Transnuclear as a Maintenance Planner. Transnuclear deals with the storage of spent nuclear fuel from power plants. If I had my druthers I would be working in the performance side of the automotive industry, or a race team of some kind as I have a minor in Motorsports.

sjsfire

I was born in 1959. As soon as I was able to swing a hammer around 7 or 8 I was helping my dad build houses. Mainly nailing down sub floor and as I got older I was able to lay out the walls and roof. I did that all through school plus worked with my grandfather on the family farm. He raised cattle and had corn, beans, and wheat. His newest tractor was aold Case 830 until I was a junior in high school he bought a JD 4020 with a cab, no AC just a heater in it. Boy, you would have though we were rich when we got that.Before that we froze our ass's off in the fall and winter. I did both those pretty much all through school also working part time at a gas station. By the time I got into high school I was able to pay cash for my first car, a 1966 Chevy Impala 2 door , 75,000 miles with a 283/2 speed auto, cherry red. I paid $500, bought it from my mom's cousin. After I graduated from high school in 1977I got a job working for the State of Illinois doing building maint. work, building research equipment for wildlife field work, fisheries, and ag. I did that pretty much my 30 years then retired in April of 2008 at 48 years old.

dphobby

Born in 1951, Started picking pickles for a canning factory at 12-13 years old to get money for BBs and my first bow and arrow (Bear Grizzly). Then I worked on a farm, picking stones, shoveling manure, chopping hay, combining, ETC. for 3.00 a day (big money). Through high school I had different jobs working for neighbors. Went to school for a mechanic for two years and worked in a Garage for a couple years before going in the army, One of the last ones to get drafted, spent two years in Germany. Got out in 1973, got marriedin 1978 and bought a smallhobby farm. I quit the mechanic job and remodeled the barn for Veal and have been doing that ever since. But that is going down hill likeeverythimg else,(Glad I put some momney away when things were good)

We have three kids (28, 25 year oldboys) and 23 year old girl. And two Grand children,

Some days I feel old enough to be Grandpa and some days not