Non-Ambitions

     I recently made a resolution of sorts – hey, we Type As can’t allow ourselves to be bound by the calendar! — to introduce more lighthearted, utterly non-political material here at Liberty’s Torch. The dump was getting far too monochromatically serious, and for most of us, the challenges of daily life are serious enough. But of course, once one has made such a resolution, it’s important to follow through. And that has proved a little more difficult than I thought it would.

     However, just this morning, the C.S.O. and I got onto the subject of career paths: more specifically, career paths no young person would ever aspire to follow. And therein lay a rich vein indeed.

     Most of us Baby Boomers set out on our lives intending, or at least hoping, to become something with some status, some actual social heft. Our parents encouraged us to “think big:” to aspire to high station, great wealth, lots of groupies. But the supply of open positions for captains of industry, long-ball hitters, and philosopher-kings has never equaled the demand for those jobs. (Jean-Baptiste Say, call your office. Urgent! Urgent!) In consequence, most of us have had to settle for somewhat less exalted stations.

     And let it be frankly said: there are some jobs one only takes when nothing better is available. Yet those jobs must be done...and they are. That speaks to an ineradicable practicality, one in which even a soul greatly disappointed by life’s vermiculations can take pride as he cashes his paycheck.

     Still, can you imagine a young boy or girl completing the sentence “When I grow up, I want to be” with any of the following?

• A shepherd.
• A garbageman.
• A prison guard.
• A street cleaner.
• A sewer worker.
• A process server.
• A bail bondsman.
• A window washer.
• A guy who sells beer at baseball games.
• A guy who installs the big flapping posters that go on roadside billboards.

     Would you care to extend that list, Gentle Reader?