My Life
Title
My Life
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"Looking back on my life (as I have been doing most of my life) I began to see it as a tower. "
Date
2009
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Identifier
My_Life
Text
My Life
Looking back on my life (as I have been doing most of my life) I began to see it as a tower. Then I saw it as a line on a graph. Then I saw it as a series of concentric circles. Reflecting on this for a few minutes, I began to see it as a life.
I remember a cartoon which showed a sequence—from a baby crawling, to a toddler toddling, to a boy walking, to a young man running, to an adult striding, to an old man with a cane, to an older man in a wheel chair, to… Not very funny, but accurate.
The tower that I first saw was based on learning: Parents as the child’s first teachers. Then pre-school, nursery school and kindergarten. Then elementary school, junior high school, high school. college, graduate school, work (on-the-job training), work-related classes, and classes unrelated to work, and finally classes in retirement. Describing all this learning in greater detail will take me the rest of the year. I have already alluded to most of the educational institutions I attended and jobs I have held. Seeing it as a tower is just another way of describing that aspect of my life.
Plotting my life on a graph, suggests a line that starts in the lower left hand corner and grows over time, moving up and to the right. The vertical line represents achievements; the horizontal—time. The question is “where does it peak?” For a while, I saw my progression from school to work—the ILGWU, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Amalgamated Laundry Workers, AFSCME, and then Regional Director of the US Civil Rights Commission as an upward line. When the job at the Commission ended, I made a lateral move to the Department of Employment and Training’s Board of Review. But when that job ended and I was 65, I desperately looked for another State job—any job—and found one as an Inspector in the Fair Labor Division of the Attorney General’s Office. It was at a lower grade, but it was a job with health benefits, which I could carry into retirement, and a pension. But the line turned downward. The prestige and the pay was less.
The concentric circles analogy is a bit forced. At the center is a new born me. From that, like the waves that flow from a pebble dropped in a body of water, are all my life’s experiences: family, friends, education, work, community, organizational involvement, travel, interests.
I have written about my mother and my wives and children and about a few of my relatives, but not in an organized way. I know so little about my father, and less about his family. It was a fluke that resulted in my learning about my cousins in Israel.
Looking back on my life (as I have been doing most of my life) I began to see it as a tower. Then I saw it as a line on a graph. Then I saw it as a series of concentric circles. Reflecting on this for a few minutes, I began to see it as a life.
I remember a cartoon which showed a sequence—from a baby crawling, to a toddler toddling, to a boy walking, to a young man running, to an adult striding, to an old man with a cane, to an older man in a wheel chair, to… Not very funny, but accurate.
The tower that I first saw was based on learning: Parents as the child’s first teachers. Then pre-school, nursery school and kindergarten. Then elementary school, junior high school, high school. college, graduate school, work (on-the-job training), work-related classes, and classes unrelated to work, and finally classes in retirement. Describing all this learning in greater detail will take me the rest of the year. I have already alluded to most of the educational institutions I attended and jobs I have held. Seeing it as a tower is just another way of describing that aspect of my life.
Plotting my life on a graph, suggests a line that starts in the lower left hand corner and grows over time, moving up and to the right. The vertical line represents achievements; the horizontal—time. The question is “where does it peak?” For a while, I saw my progression from school to work—the ILGWU, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Amalgamated Laundry Workers, AFSCME, and then Regional Director of the US Civil Rights Commission as an upward line. When the job at the Commission ended, I made a lateral move to the Department of Employment and Training’s Board of Review. But when that job ended and I was 65, I desperately looked for another State job—any job—and found one as an Inspector in the Fair Labor Division of the Attorney General’s Office. It was at a lower grade, but it was a job with health benefits, which I could carry into retirement, and a pension. But the line turned downward. The prestige and the pay was less.
The concentric circles analogy is a bit forced. At the center is a new born me. From that, like the waves that flow from a pebble dropped in a body of water, are all my life’s experiences: family, friends, education, work, community, organizational involvement, travel, interests.
I have written about my mother and my wives and children and about a few of my relatives, but not in an organized way. I know so little about my father, and less about his family. It was a fluke that resulted in my learning about my cousins in Israel.
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “My Life,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed April 20, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/101.