1980-1980

First job was working for a non-profit organization advocating legislation that would eliminate any sort of discrimination in all new housing projects. Builders would be required to provide affordable housing even in luxury apartments and upscale suburbs. In my opinion, such legislation would violate the human rights of people who had graduated from affordable housing to something far better; rights granted to them by the Declaration of Independence, which promised Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Realizing that I was at odds with my employers, I left with no regret after two months of incompatibility.

1983-1990

Immediately hired by a for-profit company involved with tertiary drilling for oil, gas and coal, I was initially more comfortable, contributing multiple ideas that later became widely known as fracking. I left only after discovering that the fracking process made acreage I had bought in the surrounding area virtually worthless to community developers.  The Environmental Protection Agency could be a natural match, because various plant allergies tend to keep me indoors, breathing filtered air. I could be invaluable to the Department of the Interior, since I spend most of my time avoiding the exterior.

1992-1999

Experience with my previous employers enabled me to join an innovative advertising group. Our aim was to take television advertising into the realm of prescription medication, a field utterly neglected but one with an alluring future. Exciting drugs were being discovered daily, but suffering people were not learning anything about them from their TV sets. Our hope was to change all that, and we can proudly say that we have reached far beyond our modest goals, now visible on cable news, network dramas and comedies.  Because the US is the only country listing all side effects of advertised drugs on TV, Europeans are re-invigorating tourism to our cities, flying here to discover what their own media won’t tell them.

2001-2011

Having accomplished my ambitions to alleviate pain, I turned my attention to Homeland Security, a newly urgent field. I became a lobbyist, pleading to our senators and congressional representatives to vote for fourth generation proof of citizenship for all airline passengers. A great-grandfather’s birth certificate would be sufficient to guarantee entrance to the United States, thereby avoiding unnecessary delays at the airports. A great-grandparent’s marriage license would also be acceptable, providing the couple were married to American citizens in one of the 48 states at the time of the wedding. Weddings after the admission of Hawaii and Alaska would not be honored until thoroughly investigated.

2012-2018

Immigration having lost its luster after a difficult decade, and believing wholeheartedly in versatility, I found myself agreeing our public education system was deeply flawed. Daily, I was driven past grossly deteriorated public-school buildings, and it was logical to assume that more competition was what they needed at once. I saw asphalt playgrounds instead of lush lawns, with students spending their recesses in lazy clumps, standing around playing cell-phone games instead of lacrosse or fencing; wholesome sports that build character as well as bodies. Thinking how fortunate I was to have attended private schools with those activities; I briefly put aside other concerns to concentrate upon education, especially the matter of more choices for parents. As a result of extensive research in visiting two public schools and nine private ones, I am convinced that public education is an obsolete notion long outgrown by 2018. Public schools were a 17^th century idea, workable only in 17^th century America. People shop in for-profit stores, so why wouldn’t they send their children to for-profit schools?

2018-?

Not long after my interest in education changed to economics, my focus shifted to agriculture. I was among the first to realize that the president’s tariff proposal would ruin vineyard owners, orchardists, soy bean farmers and ranchers. As soon as the newly-rich of China learned they would be paying 15% more for California wine, Washington State fruit, Midwestern soybeans and Kansas meat, they’d look elsewhere, and would have infinite choices. Best for us; worse for them, blue states produce more of these items than ours do. There are plenty of lamb chops in Australia; barrels of wine aging well in France, Spain and Italy, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa. The Chinese would reject Napa Valley Pinot Noir, Washington apples, Kansas sirloin and American tofu in a nanosecond. Despite the slight risk of an occasional deserter, those tariffs alone would effectively bankrupt California and Washington State, and even New York would suffer industrial hardship. The Midwestern states, still unable to produce gluten-free wheat, may have a deserter or two, but so what?  We’re not taking away their guns. The Department of Agriculture now seems to be the place where I could be most useful, though I could fit anywhere.