A Mostly Normal Childhood



Mostly normal. We were a typical American family. Mom, dad, 2 brothers (I am a twin) and a sister. By the time of this writing both of our parents have passed. Both were college educated and led very productive careers. While dad's education was in agriculture, he wound up a computer programmer for GMAC.  Mom was an educator. Elementary music.

Like many people, Dad stumbled into his career. Before we were born, Mom's brother had come to visit us in the DFW metroplex in Texas. He was looking for work. At the time dad was a science teacher.  But like any good husband, he "volunteered" to take my uncle to job interviews listed in the paper. Yes, the paper, for you younguns.  At one such interview there was an aptitude test. When the tester came to the lobby to retrieve the hopefuls, Dad didn't get up. When asked why, he explained he was merely his brother in laws ride. The tester told him the test would take over an hour and he might as well sit for it as well. The funny thing was dad didn't even know what the job opening was for. He decided to take the test anyway. Afterwards he took our uncle to several more interviews and neither of them thought much of it. The following week my dad received a call with an offer to be a computer programmer. Yes. Agricultural degree and a career as a programmer. My dad was at the beginning of the world of business computing. These weren't the computers you know today. The CPU was the size of a large room. Vacuum tubes, resistors, punch cards. In general, it was limited to base calculations. Nonetheless, I wish I had spent more time talking to him about his experiences. There is allot of history I missed out on by simply not asking about it. 


We were kids of the seventies. I do not recall much about that time that much of the mainstream recollections concentrate on.  I mentioned "mostly normal". I was the abnormal part of the story. Today it is called ADHD, autism, and many other things. I didn't fit in well anywhere. I had one main friend I can remember well. Jeff.  We were both heavy into Star Wars and Doctor Who. The Christmas after start wars came out, I received a X-wing, and my twin a Tie Fighter.  We were in hot heaven. But Jeff got a Millennium Falcon. We spent many a afternoon at Jeff's house reliving and creating epic battles with these toys.  But I was really jealous of that Falcon.  I also loved Legos.  We had a large basic set.  they were not making the elaborate mimic models as they have today.  If they did, the Lego falcon would have been at the top of my want list...


While we were little, my mom stayed at home.  Once we were all three of school age, she enrolled as a part time teacher and remained mainly a home maker.  I had a lot of troubled at school.  I was born with ADHD, Autism, and double vision.  One of my sons is just like me, so I can only imagine what my parents went through in the 70's with no real resources for a "problem child".  


I will expound on this in another post.  My goal is to make these a few moments read.  Perhaps as I evolve with my writing abilities I will post longer reads.  But when I read other posts, and they are longer than a few minutes of my time, I move on.  Until tomorrows post.  Have a great day.

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