Rant #2,508: Hundred Pounds of Clay

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to everyone.

This is the first MLK Day that I have ever had off. Even when I was teaching, if I remember correctly, the holiday was still not acknowledged as a national one, and even in New York State, not every school district recognized it, so I worked on this day.

Of course, that is when I had a job, which right now, I don't.

Today is supposed to be a day of service, which of course, is a bunch of malarkey. It is our society's way of trying to show how important the day is, and that we recognize how important MLK was to our lives. That is all fine and good, but look at how many MLK Day sales there are.

And that is my point. For 99 percent of us, it is just another day off.

That is not slighting MLK or his importance. That is just reality.

For me, it is day number 102 off, just another day in virtual suspended animation for me.

It is a day like any other day, as was day number 100, which was on Saturday.

Yes, even on Saturday, I went on the computer and looked through the job offerings--my late paternal grandfather would be horrified, as Saturday is shaboss, or the Jewish sabbath, and we are not supposed to be doing such things--and I even applied for a job or two, a job or two that I will never hear back from, or will hear back in the negative.

I did the very same thing on day number 101, and will do the same thing today, on day 102, but like the other days, it will most probably be for naught.

It won't lead anywhere, and I will still be here, in my same position at square one, for the foreseeable future.

That is why tomorrow, on day number 103, I am going to be doing something proactive, something that might prove to be beneficial to my, and my family's, future.

I am going to be taking a seminar not to help me find a job--heaven knows I have taken enough of those--but to help me plan for my likely future. It is a seminar on Social Security, and I will have numerous questions about it as I approach the time when this is going to be my likely conclusion for the remainder of my time on this planet.

I will be finding out the ins and outs of how to maneuver into and through the morass of Social Security, and I feel that it is more important to find out about that than it is to waste my time each and every day looking for work, for employers that will never hire me.

No, I will still look--New York State says that I must, so I continue on--but I think that finding out more on Social Security is much more important at this point.

When my Unemployment insurance runs out, I will have just turned 63 years of age, so I will be the next rung up the ladder of early retirement. Even though placement people, resume writers and so many other people keep on telling me that I have so much to offer by way of my background, my experience and my talent, that is all baloney in today's workplace, where the only thing valued is your young age, if you were lucky enough to be born at just the right time.

I was born in the late 1950s, so I am considered to be over the hill. Don't tell me that I am wrong; anyone who believes just the opposite is living in their own rose-colored world and has never been without a job.

So Social Security it is for me, and I will begin that quest tomorrow, with my wife and son with me. They are part of this, so they need to be there too.

Have I given up hope? No, I haven't, but unlike MLK, I don't have a dream, at least about finding another full-time job.

It took me a while to acknowledge it, but I have already reached the mountaintop, and evidently, factors out of my control are preventing me from reaching that place ever again.

I am going to have to skip tomorrow at this site, as I have a very busy day tomorrow before I go to this seminar, including some medical things I have to take care of.

So I will see you again Wednesday, just another day of the same old, same old for me.

Speak to you then.