Member-only story
College!?..Pfft, Not Even An Option
A tradesman I shall be then
I grew up less than fortunate. That doesn’t mean that we were in the poorhouse. Just that we didn’t have everything nice a new. I learned to get by with what I had and to be grateful for it. We always had food, clothing and a roof overhead.
All people experience the passage of time and I was no different. Like everyone else, I too grew up, and had a lot of learning, trial, and error. Mainly in the basement of the old house. That’s where everything that was broken ended up.
It was typical to find me down there messing with a bicycle, lawn mower, a broken VCR. I even had the opportunity to tear into an old 8-track player. I dismantled everything and tried to figure out how to make it work again.
Retuning an item to working order was mandatory if it functioned before I took it all apart, so I would sometimes accidentally give myself a challenge with a “no fail” option (Cue the Mission Impossible Theme).
Dad tried to help out but he would get frustrated because some things were just beyond his understanding. Eventually, that basement was allocated as my dark and dingy work area. I would enjoy working on things and when I’d need a component, my inner Macgyver would appear and I’d scrounge around for something throughout the house just to…
