THE UNIVERSAL RESOURCE
Schedules have ruled my life ever since I was born. I don't think I was ready for this world since I came out ass backwards, kicking and screaming. But the rule of the day was that a rigorous routine formed a successful individual out of the chaos of an undisciplined infant. My mother worried about that schedule. It didn't seem quite right to her. It didn't fit in with her instincts. But, after all, what did she know?
I wasn't ready for school either. There I stood, next to the piano, the sun shining in through those high windows as my mother spoke to the teacher. Then she was gone.
Every day, good weather or bad, we walked back and forth to that school, pushing the carriage for my baby sister during the first year or so. It took almost a half-hour for the trip, one-way. Then came the waiting, waiting for the return. I don't remember anything from that waiting period.
Busy, busy, busy. That's what filled up the scheduled time. That's what I learned in school, how to pass time. In the beginning I discovered that I could ask to be excused to walk the hall for a trip to the bathroom. I used to imagine I was elsewhere during that trip. On an ocean liner, perhaps. But they caught on quickly and sent me home with a note asking if I had a medical problem. The schoolwork didn't keep me busy enough. I had to invent my own busyness.
It took time to grow up. I kept busy doing that. Preparing for the future was what filled my life. Isn't that what schooling was all about? That's when I discovered that I was going to live in a different world. We really didn't care about the past, I learned. The future was what life was all about. I remembered the "World of the Future", at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. But then came the war. I was busy keeping up with that and I forgot about the future. When the soldiers returned from the war, they brought back something new, the atomic bomb.
I had one. I sent in a box top and got a gold and silver ring. There was a finned projectile mounted on top. I'd go into the dark hall closet and remove the red cap that covered a small lens. When my eyes had adjusted to the dark I'd peer inside and see the wonderful shooting sparkles of atomic energy. Scientists called it a scintillometer. It was an icon of the future.
I got busy, becoming a scientist.
Somebody told my father that there was a famous physicist named Plank. That was encouraging. Popular Science was the only magazine my father read, and he had some old papers and books from his High School that I discovered in the attic. There was even a second-hand chemistry set I inherited from an older cousin. Science was in the air.
Since I was a winter child my schooling began in January. We had half-grades in those days. To modernize, they doubled up my schedule in fourth grade and I had to rush to catch up in fifth. I didn't know how to write in cursive so I had to fake it as I went along. I also got into a couple of fights. I wasn't ready. But sixth grade had Science, every day! I was ready for that, especially since it was taught by Mr.Wilson, our first male teacher, who also had been in the war as a navigator, and wore dress boots to class. Now I had no trouble keeping busy. My schedule was complete, and when the time came to put together a Career Book I knew just how I was going to occupy the next twenty years of my life.
A schedule had become my universal resource. Whenever there was a lull in the busyness the schedule would fill it in. Each phase of my life was regulated by a prefabricated template that kept me on track and covered up the anxieties that arose while I awaited the arrival of the next scheduled event. Whenever I was alone and unoccupied I passed the time with preparations for the future. I could organize, rearrange, clean, erase, rewrite whatever I had done, and rehearse the next step. Cooking, housework, shopping and child-care became my specialties as the schedules of others became integrated into my own. Any profound concerns were crowded into the background as I called more and more upon my universal resource to carry me through the day.
More so now than ever, the daily schedule enables me to face the business of life. It's all busyness now, here in the empty nest. It's all waiting, now, and wondering what the next stage will offer. The universal resource still works, but perhaps it is time to replace it with an invention of my own. That's the way into the future, isn't it?
I wasn't ready for school either. There I stood, next to the piano, the sun shining in through those high windows as my mother spoke to the teacher. Then she was gone.
Every day, good weather or bad, we walked back and forth to that school, pushing the carriage for my baby sister during the first year or so. It took almost a half-hour for the trip, one-way. Then came the waiting, waiting for the return. I don't remember anything from that waiting period.
Busy, busy, busy. That's what filled up the scheduled time. That's what I learned in school, how to pass time. In the beginning I discovered that I could ask to be excused to walk the hall for a trip to the bathroom. I used to imagine I was elsewhere during that trip. On an ocean liner, perhaps. But they caught on quickly and sent me home with a note asking if I had a medical problem. The schoolwork didn't keep me busy enough. I had to invent my own busyness.
It took time to grow up. I kept busy doing that. Preparing for the future was what filled my life. Isn't that what schooling was all about? That's when I discovered that I was going to live in a different world. We really didn't care about the past, I learned. The future was what life was all about. I remembered the "World of the Future", at the 1939 World's Fair in New York. But then came the war. I was busy keeping up with that and I forgot about the future. When the soldiers returned from the war, they brought back something new, the atomic bomb.
I had one. I sent in a box top and got a gold and silver ring. There was a finned projectile mounted on top. I'd go into the dark hall closet and remove the red cap that covered a small lens. When my eyes had adjusted to the dark I'd peer inside and see the wonderful shooting sparkles of atomic energy. Scientists called it a scintillometer. It was an icon of the future.
I got busy, becoming a scientist.
Somebody told my father that there was a famous physicist named Plank. That was encouraging. Popular Science was the only magazine my father read, and he had some old papers and books from his High School that I discovered in the attic. There was even a second-hand chemistry set I inherited from an older cousin. Science was in the air.
Since I was a winter child my schooling began in January. We had half-grades in those days. To modernize, they doubled up my schedule in fourth grade and I had to rush to catch up in fifth. I didn't know how to write in cursive so I had to fake it as I went along. I also got into a couple of fights. I wasn't ready. But sixth grade had Science, every day! I was ready for that, especially since it was taught by Mr.Wilson, our first male teacher, who also had been in the war as a navigator, and wore dress boots to class. Now I had no trouble keeping busy. My schedule was complete, and when the time came to put together a Career Book I knew just how I was going to occupy the next twenty years of my life.
A schedule had become my universal resource. Whenever there was a lull in the busyness the schedule would fill it in. Each phase of my life was regulated by a prefabricated template that kept me on track and covered up the anxieties that arose while I awaited the arrival of the next scheduled event. Whenever I was alone and unoccupied I passed the time with preparations for the future. I could organize, rearrange, clean, erase, rewrite whatever I had done, and rehearse the next step. Cooking, housework, shopping and child-care became my specialties as the schedules of others became integrated into my own. Any profound concerns were crowded into the background as I called more and more upon my universal resource to carry me through the day.
More so now than ever, the daily schedule enables me to face the business of life. It's all busyness now, here in the empty nest. It's all waiting, now, and wondering what the next stage will offer. The universal resource still works, but perhaps it is time to replace it with an invention of my own. That's the way into the future, isn't it?
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posted by David at 8:12 AM
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