So sometimes even though I have run a multi million dollar manufacturing operation, I have a lot to learn! Anyway, I will stick with the title and as Joe Namath said, "Just run a, you know what, post"! I thought that was pretty good being off the cuff and all. Never claimed to be a comedian anyway. So.....
I think I have to back up a little. Tell you about where I came from and where I kind of went. My Dad worked for 42 years for a corporation that's life line wAs government contracts, mostly military. He never made more than $45,000 in ac year, ever! My Mom grew up in Charlestown, a pretty rough part of the City of Boston on any day. Her dad was a Beat cop in the North End. Imagine having a irish surname and walking around policing 52,000 Italians? That must've been interesting. Anyway, I was born in 1960, and for the first 16 months of my life, Mom,Dad and I lived with his parent's in the middle of Dorchester, a placed called Codman Square. So, Dad and Mom finally go to move out on their own and the don't have enough money for an apartment, so they end up qualifying for was called back then, Boston Public Housing! Right, it is now called a project! So we move in there and they have a second child, my brother in 1963. Back then as a kid you don't care where you are from or anything else. You care about baseball, and how many kids you can play with and, maybe the fire department will open up the hydrants when it really gets hot, and you wait for that bell that tells you the ice cream truck is coming. Wow, simple but that's the way it was. I probably should get into more detail about this but , now I realize this is another whole blog! By the way, what category should this blog go into? I was asked that today and I kind of froze, so that's why I am sticking with the iamgoingtocommentonjustaboutanything title. Because life can be about anything! if one person can read this and relate, I have succeeded. LIfe is wonderful, but it is also complicated, conflicting, immense and totally intoxicating. But it can also really suck.
So, in a nutshell, we grew up in a project where my crazy uncle's, my Dad was the baby of 17! So much for the rhythm method huh? My crazy hard drinking grandfather and all our relatives treated us like we we the wayward, unlucky, poor family. Which we were, no doubt. But early on, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Cape Cod, and it wasn't going away.
Our childhood we thought was typical. You had 2 or 3 neighborhood bullies, that either fought and got destroyed, but you stood up to them at least, or you hid in the bushes and were labeled a complete wussy! Probably today, that would not be excepted. I mean there was a class system in the projects. There was the older kids, who you would some day, hope to be, the middle group, who the older kids beat the crap out of, and there was the younger ones who were taught by the older kids, but would still get the crap beat out of you by the middle-older kids! Great way to grow up, and yet it some ways, it was. You always knew where you stood, but you also got to evaluate everyone, and if you had the ability to assess everyone's personality no matter how diverse, you could survive pretty much. But anyway, I will go on about this a little more down the road, but in some strange way this helped me in my career and my ascension within the coffee industry. For now I bid you, goodnight! I hope all is well with everyone and tomorrow is another day. So we'll see what happens! Joe
I think I have to back up a little. Tell you about where I came from and where I kind of went. My Dad worked for 42 years for a corporation that's life line wAs government contracts, mostly military. He never made more than $45,000 in ac year, ever! My Mom grew up in Charlestown, a pretty rough part of the City of Boston on any day. Her dad was a Beat cop in the North End. Imagine having a irish surname and walking around policing 52,000 Italians? That must've been interesting. Anyway, I was born in 1960, and for the first 16 months of my life, Mom,Dad and I lived with his parent's in the middle of Dorchester, a placed called Codman Square. So, Dad and Mom finally go to move out on their own and the don't have enough money for an apartment, so they end up qualifying for was called back then, Boston Public Housing! Right, it is now called a project! So we move in there and they have a second child, my brother in 1963. Back then as a kid you don't care where you are from or anything else. You care about baseball, and how many kids you can play with and, maybe the fire department will open up the hydrants when it really gets hot, and you wait for that bell that tells you the ice cream truck is coming. Wow, simple but that's the way it was. I probably should get into more detail about this but , now I realize this is another whole blog! By the way, what category should this blog go into? I was asked that today and I kind of froze, so that's why I am sticking with the iamgoingtocommentonjustaboutanything title. Because life can be about anything! if one person can read this and relate, I have succeeded. LIfe is wonderful, but it is also complicated, conflicting, immense and totally intoxicating. But it can also really suck.
So, in a nutshell, we grew up in a project where my crazy uncle's, my Dad was the baby of 17! So much for the rhythm method huh? My crazy hard drinking grandfather and all our relatives treated us like we we the wayward, unlucky, poor family. Which we were, no doubt. But early on, I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Cape Cod, and it wasn't going away.
Our childhood we thought was typical. You had 2 or 3 neighborhood bullies, that either fought and got destroyed, but you stood up to them at least, or you hid in the bushes and were labeled a complete wussy! Probably today, that would not be excepted. I mean there was a class system in the projects. There was the older kids, who you would some day, hope to be, the middle group, who the older kids beat the crap out of, and there was the younger ones who were taught by the older kids, but would still get the crap beat out of you by the middle-older kids! Great way to grow up, and yet it some ways, it was. You always knew where you stood, but you also got to evaluate everyone, and if you had the ability to assess everyone's personality no matter how diverse, you could survive pretty much. But anyway, I will go on about this a little more down the road, but in some strange way this helped me in my career and my ascension within the coffee industry. For now I bid you, goodnight! I hope all is well with everyone and tomorrow is another day. So we'll see what happens! Joe
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