I had a visitor while I was getting my material ready for the newspaper. I invited her to wait so we could talk, after I finished writing because I was on deadline. I couldn’t stop her with “deadline” which puts an immediate sense of “get it done” into my mind.

You really write for a living? So, are you writing right now? What are you writing about? That’s not like a real job, right?

These were the comments while I was trying to think.

What is a real job, I asked my friend who spent most of her life married but not working outside the home. She responded with a couple of suggestions of occupations which would (1) require me to be about 25 years old, (2) in Olympic Games physical condition, and (3) like to be bored.

Do high school guidance counselors still help young people figure out what their possibilities are for future careers? That must be a daunting task. Reading as many newspapers and watching as much news as I can, I’ve become aware that the most desperately needed workers are in what we used to call “vocational” fields, i.e., construction, plumbing, and all kinds of nursing and medical care areas. Families are getting smaller, there are fewer children in school each year and coincidentally, people are living longer. Everyone needs a place to live and eventually, everyone will need some kind of extended care.

Most of the jobs or careers we are aware of today won’t exist 10 years from now. And things change, technologically. Ten years ago, putting a newspaper together (here in Windham, anyway) required a stockpile of bars of wax, a light table, a good straight edge, a “wheel” and hundreds of sharp little X-acto blades and a good steady hand. Newspaper people understand all of this. Today, it’s all done on a computer screen, over the airwaves, into who knows where it goes, ready to be printed.

When I was a teenager I was just like all other teenage girls then and now – obsessed with what I looked like and what I wore. So I decided to be a fashion designer, even sending away for catalogs from colleges where this was taught. A few years later, I became enthralled with literature thanks to a wonderful English teacher, and changed my mind about what I wanted to do. I’d be an English teacher.

Then as reality came into view about the middle of my junior year and it became obvious that few of us would be going to college. On the homefront, I began to hear about “getting a job,” “paying board,” and other life necessities and I settled down to courses with which I could earn a living: shorthand, typing, bookkeeping and office practice. Along the way, mostly because of my love of reading and all the writing required in school long ago, I picked up the ability to make sentences into paragraphs.

So while it appears I am “playing on the computer,” I actually am working. And yes, writing can be a real job, especially with on-going commentary.

See you next week.