I realized the other day that my Dad was only 39 years old when he lost his "stable" job as a mechanical piping designer at Newport News Shipbuilding. It was April 1, 1977; we had just purchased our first "brand new" car--a Honda Accord--and then the union decided to strike. It was a long summer...and ultimately, the union was broken and the strike was never settled.

It was a difficult time for my parents. I was only 10 years old, but I recall that my Dad was unemployed for what seemed an eternity. He received some money from the union for picketing, and I remember him going out to stand on the picket lines of a strike that went largely unnoticed as the shipyard replaced the designers and draftsmen. He took a welding class and then worked nights in the Union Camp paper mill--bringing home the unforgettable "aroma" I would recall years later as I attended law school in Tacoma, WA. He made money on the weekends using his home-built stump-grinding machine, and eventually found an engineering job again--but commuting 90-miles each day to Richmond.

I wonder what our kids will remember as my family embarks on a very different journey in 2010? I hope we will look back upon 2009 as a transitional year and 2010 as the time when we began to really establish our future. The circumstances are very different in many ways for us...but it is a surprise to consider, to recognize all these years later that my parents once stood in similar shoes and must have felt similar things about the challenges of navigating the future.

I digress mightily in this blog that has fallen rather silent lately...but I know big things are coming. The "plan" will be better drawn from the perspective of future history.