Who remembers those long ago science classes and the dogma ‘Every action has an equal and different reaction’? Today we have proof of that statement big time!
The Covid Pandemic and government efforts to control it have changed our 2019 world completely and, in the process, rocked, even derailed many public and private projects and plans. Our way of life has changed forever, and even when a semblance of normality does return, the world will have moved on to a new reality, with different priorities, and newly discovered hopes and dreams!
For myself as a Senior Citizen with a life encompassing enough activities to more than fill my days, the sudden shutdown revealed a world reduced to boring domestic chores and items on the ‘Round-to-it’ list that mentally I was determined to avoid getting around to if at all possible! The urgent need to find an all-consuming project led me back to my lifelong pastime of writing about life in general and my family life experiences in particular.
My Covid project was born! I would publish that book of short stories. Furthermore, I would upgrade my software skills and ‘do it self’ (the latter a constant family slogan), on a Self-Publishing site. I did some research and chose Amazon!
Perhaps at this point I should mention that I started life as a teacher and spent many years in that profession. However after time out with children and a long spell of occasional Supply teaching I decided I wanted to start a new career. It was the late 1970’s and computers were just becoming something more than giant machines in silent air conditioned rooms. With a son in High School absolutely engrossed in the new world of small personal computers I ‘caught the bug’ and, after a spell back in College and some University courses plus several gyrations through the employment fields I finally landed in the world of Computer Technology, Programming and Systems Design. I had found an all absorbing interest which was to last long beyond those last eighteen years of my working life.
When I retired in 1998, the Internet and public access to the new digital world was in its infancy. Even in most companies it was still regarded as primarily an accounting and data entry system and email systems tended to be for ‘In House’ use only. There was no internet access from our Office System. Even cell phones were still cumbersome affairs, more suited to a shoulder bag than a pocket!
As Department Manager I had at last been supplied with my own Laptop Computer which came with its own commodious leather briefcase. The whole ensemble had cost the company over $6,000, was painfully slow compared to today’s PCs, and weighed a ton! However, now all I needed was a phone jack and I was available on-call. No longer did I get the frantic 2am request to come into the office immediately, (it was a half-hour drive).
When the call came, I could sit comfortably in my dressing gown armed with a cup of tea and sort things out remotely. If the phone lines did not crash it was bliss! Alas ‘being dropped’ and having to start over was a constant problem and on one or two occasions were so frequent that the old drive-in was the only solution!
Since my retirement I have generally learned new technology on an ‘as needed’ basis. Consequently, my publishing project entailed exploring and learning to use facets of virtually all my current Software which I had previously never known existed! Some discoveries were annoying as I realized I had been doing things the hard way when a simple button had appeared with one of the many updates! Sadly, I must admit I am not very good at reading all the blurb which accompanies most upgrades!
Some of my discoveries were so absorbing that it was hard to concentrate on what I needed to know and to ignore those exciting trails to fascinating new techniques.
But at the end of the day, thanks to the prolonged Covid Lockdowns, and in spite of the need for numerous revisions, I made it! Memories of My Childhood in 1940’s Wenlock is completed and published on Amazon worldwide and I am already working on a sequel! I hope that you will enjoy my memories as much as I enjoyed writing them. Incidentally, versions of some of the stories have already appeared in the Storytime section of this blog.