Cromwell at Dunbar 1886 Andrew Carrick Gow 1848-1920 Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1886 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01588 (c/o Wikimedia Commons)
Most students of American history are familiar with the standard narrative of New England’s early settlers: the Mayflower, the Puritans, and the quest for religious freedom. But there is a darker, hidden foundation stone buried beneath the soil of early Massachusetts. It is a story born of cold rain, political betrayal, and a brutal military disaster that history has largely allowed to slip through its cracks.
It began on the stormy morning of September 3, 1650, in a muddy marshland just outside the Scottish town of Dunbar…
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?
I didn’t know the term “freeta-“ (from “free arbeiter” with “arbeiter” meaning “worker” in German) until I had lived in Japan as a teaching assistant for several years. Yet it occurred to me that that was the lifestyle I had been living after undergraduate school, even during the two misguided years of my creative writing master’s degree program when I worked at a nearby mall (at a software store that told me to lie to customers about software availability).
Not working as a full time worker but at a series of temporary part-time jobs, I felt free from restraints but had little money and even less chance of anything resembling a stable work life.
When you’re 22, this doesn’t seem that bad. You think it’s okay, that your whole life is ahead of you. That you’re still finding your feet.
By 27, it’s unsettling. That’s why I made the move to Japan, to take a risk and try my hand at teaching.
What got me through the “Hard Years”?
Guinness. Probably because I simply don’t know any better. It nearly derailed me. I was a ronin, awash on the waves of life. While floating from one job to the next in Boston.
In the end, maybe it was my colleagues and students in Japan that finally got me out of my morass. After making the move here, even though on the surface it was a temporary three-year contract, I needed to help someone else. Think outside myself, outside the box. and eventually, decide to make it a permanent lifestyle.
After all, helping others really does, in the end, help yourself.
OK, so I have been pulling my hair out (what’s left of it) the past few days over trying to understand an email thread with “Draft2Digital.” (Note to self: this occurred in early 2024; evidently, forgot to post it! The first thing that goes is memory, and the second is…umm…)
Let me sum up. (If you’re not interested in a rant-n-rave about the state of the independent publishing industry, you can skip to the part where I list the URL for my new book Bringer of Light… 🙂
What jobs have I *not* had would be a better question.
Right…
Lawn mower (right after I got my “working papers” at age 14, along with my social security number — this is now assigned at birth in the US)
Pizza dough maker (seriously, that’s all I did at first)
Pizza maker and deli worker (same restaurant)
Tarred the school parking lot and roof (no idea what this job would be called)
McDonald’s (who hasn’t? Both opening and closing, including cleaning the deep oil fryer. Ugh.)
Gymnasium weight room staff
Gymnasium pool cleaner
Volleyball court setup and take down
Softball umpire (all four work-study jobs at college with a max number of hours per week)
Bookstore clerk (Barnes & Nobles)
Dishwasher (summer time only)
Short order cook (same restaurant as the dishwasher job)
Stock boy (stationery store for all of two days)
Temp worker (stuffing envelopes for three days, yawn)
Blockbuster clerk (out of business video rental store—anybody remember VHS tapes?)
Bookstore clerk (used bookstore in Ann Arbor, mostly stocking and organizing overflow in the basement, although I did help set up a comic book and gaming store annex)
First year composition teacher (this was a paid TA job for one semester in grad school)
Computer software store clerk (mall seasonal job—I got in trouble once for suggesting that a customer try another software store for a game series we didn’t carry rather than lie by saying we’d let him know when we got it; I hadn’t realized lying was company policy…)
Computer salesperson (my first “full time” job—I lasted two months—definitely not slick enough to work for sales commish)
Kinko’s (computer design department)
Weekly newspaper (computer layout)
A small H&R firm (computer design…you can probably sense a trend…)
Assistant language teacher (the jump to Japan)
Language instructor (late night after school cram school for junior high kids)
Assistant Professor (both part time and full time contractual)
Professor (it’s amazing now to see how I wound up teaching TESOL…)
This may not include some odds and ends here and there when I was in JHS and SHS. I worked a lot of summer jobs and Christmas/ New Year’s break jobs. I worked most weekends while I was a full time students, and most Friday evenings, too. I don’t recall the pay for all of them, but I remember the pizza dough job paid $3.15 an hour, and four years later McDonald’s paid a whopping $3.75 an hour.
You know, I’d be very interested to find out what jobs my colleagues have had. In college when I borrowed money to study abroad in Germany, my classmates wandered around Europe for the summer while I returned and had exactly $0 to my name and worked double-shifts. I wonder how many literature or history professors spent summer days getting burned on their arms with 400F cooking oil or getting yelled at by bankers because their document wasn’t printed fast enough…
I like cold weather in winter, especially on the weekend when I can take it easy and enjoy coffee properly.
I don’t mind rainy weather when I feel like being contemplative and writing.
I prefer clear sunny weather when I want to go watch a baseball game outdoors with friends and family.
I enjoy cool and dry windy weather in autumn when the falling leaves decorate the nearby temple and shrine.
What I don’t like is when the weather changes from winter in the morning to early summer by mid-afternoon, and I especially get irritated when people can’t tell the difference between weather and climate.
“You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows…”
My middle name is actually Thomas. I chose to use “M Thomas” as a pen name out of respect for my father, who taught me how to write. As a professional communications writer, he was responsible for lots of public documents for the NYS DMV, including traffic safety reports, driver manuals, press releases from the Governor, all sorts of “my boss will feel the need to edit this, so I will deliberately leave behind something for him to do so as he doesn’t screw up the entire thing” document.
I may or may not have adopted this strategy in my own professional work (I certainly adopted the attitude…)
Another reason is because I had a baby brother named Thomas. He passed away before reaching five months old when I was not quite 11. It had a major impact on me as a child (and indeed as the adult and as the father I am).
I have no sons. It bothers me that I may be the last Thomas in our family. For a while, anyway.
There is nothing quite like the feeling sitting in a busy place produces, when it is quiet. The sense of empty vacancy seems more restrictive than if one were crowded, surrounded by should to shoulder hip-grinders.
There is no vibe. There are no walls of personality off which to bounce your own. How else can one tell one is alive?
M Thomas Apple Author Page 