Death

April, 2006 :

Times are moving on as usual in the Engineering Office.

Dave Henry turned 60 years old a few weeks ago and Karl Janvier is so grey he looks like he had a fight in a flour factory.

There’s the perpetual print room girl, Doreen Nodwell, who is on a countdown timer, ten working days to go until she retires, happy times ahead running after the grandchildren and not working.

Ron Barlow is back from his vacation, 65 years old in a few months time and does not want to stop work (something that me and Graeme cannot understand). Graeme sits there at his desk squeezing every last penny out of his investments to make his retirement day closer, he sits there, works the numbers, watches Chris Brookfield grow old and dreams of life out in Hope, British Columbia, throwing stones at pedestrians.

It’s a phenomenon, something that’s happening to all of us, death and taxes etc.

I searched out a picture of a DECwriter on the web yesterday and immediately thought of my time at APPH which is twenty years ago now. In fact, I started around the end of March in 1982 which is a mere 24 years ago.

If I mirror that number then I’ll be 72 years old.

Hopefully I’ll have been retired 22 years by then.