Life On The Spectrum: Chapter 9

During Summer 2008, it felt like a whole new world was within my grasp. I felt a sense of accomplishment for my graduation yet was relieved that I still had some sort of program at Vanguard to keep me grounded with my past. I don’t think it would have been comfortable me at that time to be suddenly thrown into a future I was not comfortable with. That summer, my parents had a pool and hot tub installed in our backyard so it was a fun and relaxing summer as well.

Sadly, when I returned as a post-grad in the Fall 2008, I immediately felt like I had not graduated at all; to me the classes seemed identical to what they had been previously—and with the exact same teacher. However, my moment to shine came on Tuesday and Wednesdays, the day of my direct vocational training. I would join a few other students who would go to work at United States Liability Insurance Group (USLI), which coincidentally was where my Aunt Peggy was an actuary; her son and my cousin Adam also worked at USLI. I was working as an Underwriting Assistant in the Liquor Department which I thought was interesting because I was only 18 at the time. But the job description did not involve drinking.)

My workday usually consisted of stamping papers and signing them which I could do at an especially fast rate. I felt great pride in that, but the highlight of the day was lunch. Lunch was free for employees and for us (this was a feature of being a Berkshire Hathaway company, the group owned by multibillionaire Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha.) Every day I would always get the exact same sandwich with the exact same specifications. (Italian Hoagie with only Ham, Cheese, Oil and Oregano.) Toward the end of the year I could just look at the food workers and they knew exactly what I wanted. It made me feel like I belonged.

On Tuesday we had a crew of Vanguard workers that included several friends of mine, including Dylan. The one strange thing about Dylan though is he would go to lunch with the other members of his department rather than with the rest of us. I was confused and hurt initially but I got used to it.

On Wednesday Vanguard sent a somewhat different crew, which included my friend Sean Gould. Sean and I had known each other since I had started at Vanguard but we really did not know each other that well until we started talking about music on a trip to New York back in 2007. Once we started working at USLI together we quickly became best friends. I introduced him to the world of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. (Brian had released his solo album “That Lucky Old Sun” on the first day of school that year.) . I lent Sean the book “Catch a Wave” which I had purchased in Brian’s home town of Hawthorne California back in 2006 and many of my Brian Wilson-based DVDs.

He was and is a rather brilliant songwriter and guitarist and one day he had myself, Dylan and a few others singing the background harmonies to Wouldn’t It Be Nice during lunch.

USLI was completely cool. I would visit my aunt’s desk after lunch on a daily basis, and I had a great working relationship with my mentor. It was the happiest I had been in years. Sean Gould and I were having great lunch discussions; in fact, the only downside was that my friendship with Dylan seemed to be slowly evaporating, He was talking about wanting to leave Vanguard and we had lost the rapport we had the previous year.

In November 2008 I voted in my first Presidential election for Barack Obama. Two months later, on Obama’s first inauguration day, I was at work, but my mentor let me stay at lunch longer to hear his presidential inauguration speech, in which he mentioned the evils of fascism and Communism, I guess to quell the suspicion of his “socialist tendencies.” However, the die had been cast by the McCain campaign and still seemed central to the talk about what would happen in his presidency.

You would think that this concession to the conservative wing would have helped Obama at least have a chance at a peaceful start to his presidency, but I could see that that was pie in the sky, The racist factions that had been in hiding since the late 60s were back with a vengeance, not at all comfortable that our president’s heritage was half Kenyan. He was accused of being a Muslim (not a crime but not true—and a reflection of remaining American anger over 9/11); of not being born in the USA, and a number of other things that seemed to me to be very random and may or may not have been racist.

My father had told me partisanship had been on a steady rise since the days of Watergate long before I was born and that this was made worse by the introduction of new television outlets with points of view, made possible by cable television’s expanded channel universe. And sure enough I became aware of Fox TV hack Glenn Beck with his paranoid ranting and John Birch Society Conspiracy Theories that led to the very right wing Tea Party, supposedly a reaction to the financial crisis that had started in 2008, but suspiciously timed right at the dawn of the Obama presidency. I didn’t think it possible that the political world was about to become even more divisive than the Bush or Clinton years. I tried to phase out the crap as much as I could but still you could feel the us vs. them mentality that had swept the nation. My interest in politics was really a hatred for it, and that was a tough polarity that would cause me trouble for many more years afterward.

After my first year working at USLI ended I went into the summer of 2009 relatively well, we toured Penn State and other Colleges in the state for my Brother Kevin.

It should have occurred to me at that time to start thinking about going to college part-time but it did not occur to me at that time.

In September of 2009 I returned to Vanguard only this time I was out of the regular classrooms (mostly and in what is called the “Career Center” On Mondays I now worked for the Human Resources Department at a retirement home. My mentors were relatively friendly.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays I returned to USLI initially working in a regional department but later moved to a different one then I passed the insurance knowledge test in February of 2010 things were going quite smoothly but then I found out my friend Dylan was having problems again. A friend of mine told me he was leaving Vanguard, and when it was revealed to him that I knew about this he was very angry with me and with the person who told me. The last time I saw him he was walking away with an angry expression, He was reportedly just as cold to the other students as well. The fact that I was never properly able to say goodbye is a deep regret.

Next thing I know I ended up moving to occupy his old job at USLI, which I held for the rest of the year. As the year ended I realized that the Career Center on non-work days was boring as hell. I knew that I should start Community College part-time next year. In the early Summer of 2010 things progressed smoothly. I helped my mother with the gardening and was very optimistic.

In late July we took a road trip all the way out to Iowa to attend my Cousin Ryan’s wedding. I always feel old and that I’m falling behind when my cousins get married or have kids, the fact that Ryan is about 18 years my senior notwithstanding. We visited Cleveland and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the way out to Iowa as well as a theme park with which I found little enchantment, maybe the first time I ever could say that. On the way back we spent some good time visiting Chicago for five days. Coincidentally the Phillies were in town playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field, which my father had always wanted to see. Bonus on that night was that Phillies ace Roy Halladay was pitching. But it was a hot night and he gave up a ridiculous amount of runs and the Phils lost. They’d win the division that year for a fourth straight year on the way to six titles in a row. But they did not win another World Series and with the World Series in their pocket already, I didn’t have anywhere near the same passion for them. This might have been the last time I really cared about sports at all.

When we got home things were generally going all right I applied to my local community college and was accepted. Then in mid-August I suddenly had a realization that sent me to the depths of despair. I was sure that all my dreams for the future were completely gone.