June 28, 2006
CLEAR WIDE BIG BLUE OPEN
More than 30 years ago, my mother heeded Horace Greeley's timeless advice to "Go West, Young [Wo]Man!", busted out of New Jersey, and hit San Francisco at the apex of the 1960s. Like any sensible person at the time, she was back in NYC in a matter of years.
No, it wasn't an allergic reaction to hippies my Mom was fleeing; it was work related. She'd been transferred by an old-school typewriter company to New York to help work on their fledgling new-fangled punch-card electronic gizmo things. And why not her? She had a degree in mathematics. She was a Systems Engineer before such things even existed.
So in the Chanin Building on 42nd St. down the street from Grand Central Terminal, a young woman, sharing a tiny apartment with one of her sisters, toiled away and somehow still managed to meet her future husband, a fellow [sic] employee. After they were married, she left IBM to raise four exceptionally gifted and beautiful children. They really are magnificent, no doubt in some large part and credit to her efforts. When these kids in question were of a reasonable age, my Mom went back to work for IBM, and she and my Dad confused us to tears over the dinner table with endless recitations of undecipherable acronyms. Perhaps that's why I'm a logorrheaic now. There's nothing that can be said in one acronym that can't be dragged out for a full paragraph.
Nonetheless, this week, perhaps tomorrow, marks my Mom's last day of work at Big Blue, IBM. She's just six weeks short of 25 years at the company and when I asked why she wasn't staying for the proverbial gold watch, she said it was because they would've started a new product launch by then and she wouldn't have been able to leave. That's my Mom; she gets things done and leaves no project unfinished.
It's a long weekend at IBM this week because of the 4th of July. My Mom may not notice, because she will no longer work there. I can't wait to see what she does next, because everything so far has been pretty impressive. I, myself, will be hopefully watching the 4th of July fireworks on the roof of the building she and my Dad lived in after they were married. It's a small awesome world.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at June 28, 2006 10:02 PM
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