It All Goes By So Fast

Yesterday, I spoke on the phone with a woman I have known for thirty years. Barbara was the librarian at Kaman Corporation in Colorado Springs on Garden of the Gods Road. My job sometimes required that I go to the Kaman library for research. On other occasions, I simply went there to waste time while I was waiting for information that I required from an engineer in my capacity as a technical writer for the Displacement Measuring Systems division and, later, the Radiation Monitoring Systems division.

Barbara and I soon became friends, maintaining contract even after I left Kaman after the Radiation Monitoring Systems division was sold to a company that eventually moved to South Carolina. Even her division was sold off as Kaman ceased to exist at the plant site on Garden of the Gods Road, where it had been built in the 1950's.

When I moved to Denver in 1991, I began calling her once a week as we kept in touch, just to trade stories or to learn what had happened to other employees whom we had known at Kaman throughout the 1980's.

She and I often speak of our playing the Colorado Lotto. She began playing when the Lotto first began in 1989. I started playing in 1991, after I moved to Denver. Twenty years later and we still lament that neither one of us has won any more than $35 to $48, getting only four out of six numbers correct at any one time. That's as close as either one of us has gotten after all these years. But playing has always given us both some slight sense of comfort that, just maybe, some day one of us may win. (A brother of a friend of hers and his family actually won several years ago.)

In more recent years, though, besides discussing the Lotto, we've talked about getting older. She's been in her 60's for a few years now; while I, of course, am now 61. Neither of us has been in much of a position to get any retirement beyond social security. And what we've spent on the Lotto wasn't that much, either, to have diverted into a retirement fund and felt comfortable.

For the first time that I can recall, she expressed her concerns about retirement being so relatively close. She used to say that she'd retire when her head hit the keyboard of her computer as she noisely passed away at work. Now, she even admits that she'd have to retire if the company she works for eases her out of the door at some point.

Barbara also admitted that she is amazed to realize that I am also in my 60's. When I worked at Kaman, I was in my 30's, my early 30's for much of the 80's. She admits what most of us concede at our respective ages: it all goes by so fast. It seemed like only yesterday that we worked at Kaman. But so many of those whom we knew there back then have retired some time ago. Several others have also passed on.

And I suppose that's what we also really are concerned about: that we're much closer to death these days. Even if we live another decade or two, we're probably closer to passing on than we are to when we worked together at Kaman those 24 to 30 years ago. Those are, obviously, sobering thoughts. She reminded me that her grandson is now in his early 20's. She used to tell me stories of when he was much younger and she would take him Trick or Treating at Halloween.

I don't call her nearly as often as I used to. Sometimes, a few months have gone by and I feel compelled to call even if not much that is new has happened to either one of us. All of our parents are now gone. We are, I suppose, in many ways next in line.

One day she may realize that I haven't called in quite some time, far longer than usual. Or I may call and learn that she no longer works in the security section (long ago, the company dispensed with the need for maintaining a library, much as IBM did the same where I work years back).

We're simply working people. The jobs that we do, while important to us as income and a livelihood, are not of critical importance to the functioning of the planet or the nation. Someone will take our places at some point, or our jobs will merely be eliminated. Our few coworkers may remember us for a time and then eventually forget us. Or they will be replaced by others who never knew we existed or did what we once did for the same company they now work for. Or the facility will, like Kaman so many years ago, close.

When I worked for Kaman, I had vacation time and sick time. At Christmas the plant site would shut down from Christmas Eve to the day after New Years, depending upon the day of the week upon which the holidays fell. So, for the few years from 1980 until 1988, when my division was sold and I went back to school, I got the holiday season off. We'd sometimes have a luncheon with our coworkers that final day, and then we'd drive off, heading home until the New Year began the work and holiday cycle all over again.

Because I typically made so much less than I had when I was in the Air Force, teaching at the Academy, I worked all day at Kaman. Then, I would teach two-to-four evenings a week for Pikes Peak Community College at Fort Carson or Peterson Air Force Base. Sometimes, I would teach a seminar on Friday evening and all day Saturday. Working that frequently made the time, and the years, go by so fast. Then that phase of my life came to an end and I was forced to move to Denver for work in 1991.

Will either of us ever win the Lotto? Probably not. Neither of us has ever gotten five numbers out of six, so six numbers out of six seems impossibly remote. But it keeps us going until the day we are forced to retire because of age or infirmity. And should social security end because the Republicans finally suceeded in terminating it so that they can get larger tax breaks for the wealthy, I am not sure what either Barbara or I will do.

Perhaps we might have to go back to working, no matter how old we are. Perhaps that is what scares us the most about retirement. It's filled with even more uncertainties than we experience now.

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