Don’t We Have To Be Optimistic?

I have always thought of myself as an optimistic guy. Like many of the readers of this newspaper, growing up things were tough. My parents were immigrants to this country who came here in the “Twenties. My dad came here as a young man and never had  a formal education. But he ended up as a stationary engineer through home study. Isn’t that the story of the great American dream?

I had to work my way through college. But, after some experience as an economist, I started a farmer-controlled company that is still guaranteeing farmers profitable returns after almost fifty years of operation.. I quit my job as a senior executive of a large corporation to take on that risky job. I was optimistic that I had the knowhow to solve that farmer company’s problems. I was, some said, foolishly optimistic, but I’m proudest of what I did there..

I quit that because the job conditions had changed to something I didn’t like, .The most interesting part of the job had long been completed. Having no job then, I tried my hand at being a consultant. That worked for ten years. When that stopped working, I got a job as a lobbyist. That was fun but after six years I got fired,.  There’s a story behind that. I retired to live on my ill-gotten gains.

 I did not dream of how my life would turn out. But  you do the job in front of you the best you can, and life happens. Sometimes things work out if you just keep trying.

I got married at the age of seventy-one to the girl that I had dreamed of when I was a teen-ager. She wouldn’t look at me back then. I tried more than once to get close to her, but nothing worked. I tried again when I became a widower and she had become a widow years previously. She was seventy when we married and we took off to spend ten years in Dublin, Ireland. That speaks of optimism, doesn’t it?

These days we live in Vancouver enjoying one of the mildest climates in Canada. My Bride still misses Winnipeg, but I love our walks on the Sea Wall and the cherry blossoms in bloom in the spring and  having flowers all around.

Once a week we zoom with our kids located around the world. Once a week we invite people to our dinner table to share with us the fruits of life. Every morning I zoom with family three thousand miles away and watch the antics of my great-granddaughter, my granddaughter and my daughter and her husband. We can hear the barks of a dog and the meows of a cat. It’s a joy!

This April my kids have told me they are going to organize a ninetieth birthday party for me in Vancouver. They and other relatives are going to arrive here to initiate an economic boomlet. I am optimistic this too will come to pass.