HI's and Lows - Part III

I suppose I should go into a little bit more of my background at this point in the story. I was born a poor young black child…. (no that’s been done…)

I grew up in what was perhaps a classic middle class family in the 1960’s. My parents were good people who had rather dull professions but, the jobs paid the bills and they seemed to tolerate them well.

My brother and I were mostly pampered during the early years. We were both relatively “good kids”. We didn’t raise a lot of dust in our parent’s live. We got decent grades in school, we never created any kind of disruption. More so than my brother, I was more successful academically and in becoming invisible to my fellow students.

I have a memory from my Senior Prom (which was more of a collective dinner than a dinner dance) we had this odd little ritual called the reading of the “Class Will”. Essentially it was an opportunity for some group of folks (I never did figure out who compiled this list) to roast the rest of the class ala “Bobby Brown leaves his sweaty wrestling garb to his underclassman teammates.” Most of the entries were relatively innocuous but, my entry only read that “Scott Ardbeg” leaves unnoticed. Like I said, I was pretty good at being invisible.

After graduation, I fell into a pattern of attempting some college, failed, worked some odd jobs, attempted college again, failed, worked some more odd jobs for about ten years before becoming encumbered with a wife.

Having the additional family responsibilities, I still managed some more aborted attempts with college classes at nights while working towards a better career. Fortunately for me, I was also unsuccessful at marriage and when that eventually crashed and burned, I caught a big break and ended up finding a decent career in the Information Technology field, specializing in telecommunications and networking.

I fell into this line of work by excelling in the tasks given to me within a couple of startup enterprises. Those initial opportunities led to ever increasing positions of responsibility and management in still other organizations. I was fortunate given my prior lack of post high school academic success that I got those opportunities. Which made my next moves even more spectacularly stupid.

I mentioned earlier that I came to the islands as a (perceived) family obligation. Despite my brother’s protests to the contrary I came swooping down to help out after his wife met an untimely end as a result of cancer.

Oddly enough and much to the surprise of my last employer I quit my position before my leave of absence was due to end. Maybe I was just ready for a change. Maybe I was really drawn to spending long hours on my feet for little pay. Maybe I liked the island life…Perhaps I have an aversion to any degree of financial and career building success.

I remember an incident I had in one of the last days I spent at that job “up north” where I had a moment (that I imagine a lot of folks confront as they arrive at “middle age”) when I walked into the bathroom to begin my morning routine, looked in the mirror and went…”Dad??” I swear I was becoming my father and that scared the bejeezus out of me.

Anyway, I don’t want you to think like I’m filled with remorse and regret. I ended up with a nice boat and I’ve met some pretty good people. I can’t say that it’s my life’s dream or that I have found my calling or anything of that ilk. I guess I’ve fallen into the same frame of mind my folks had with the jobs they maintained (and eventually retired from) while I was growing up. Keeping the wolf away from the front door was satisfaction enough.

Up until the moment that I placed a couple of coasters in front of this young couple down from North Carolina to “see what y’all do down island for fun” I really hadn’t done much that I would consider noteworthy.

---Jim