More Dispatches From the Consolation-Prize Childhood
Hey.
I've decided, if funding becomes available, I'm going to the Morristown Tech Center to "audit" the Aviation Maintenance Technology program. It will take a year and a half, and a couple thousand dollars or so, to do this. I put in my application today, and sometime in the coming days I'll take the aptitude exam. I don't plan on starting courses till this Winter--although if a "slot" opens this Fall (there's a waiting list) I'm not sure I'm ready to take it. It all depends. The instructors tell me that I can't exactly just pick and choose separate courses. I pretty much have to take the whole program.
I'm too old to think of this program as a way to a new career. But since I haven't been able to start a career with the education I have, I don't have much to lose--and I've lost too much already.
* * *
After visiting the Tech Center, I went to a comic book store and was looking through their small press books. I came upon a smattering of "Modern" issues from the late Seventies. Now, as I mentioned before there was a publisher named Charlton that was basically a DC knockoff house. Modern took up where Charlton left off by reprinting Charlton's back catalog. They only lasted a couple years.
The reason I know this was because most of the time when I was a kid, the comic books I got came from cheap three-packs bought at the five-and-dime, the supermarket, or Woolworth's. When they ran out of Whitman or Charlton, they threw in Moderns. Anyway, I had some of these, either ones I bought myself or got from trades with neighborhood boys.
My childhood was very "consolation-prize" calibur. It was rare that I got exactly what I wanted and usually had to settle for the "Brand X" knockoff. The TV ads made me TOO brand-conscious. But at the same time, I could sometimes be happy with the knockoffs because through them I could make something of my own, that wasn't 100% Madison Avenue/Hit Parade/Next Year's Cliché.
If there's a "genuine article" me out there, I wonder how he's doing these days. Your Brand X has been sitting on the shelf too long, and someday, the revenge of Brand X will come upon the world.
I've decided, if funding becomes available, I'm going to the Morristown Tech Center to "audit" the Aviation Maintenance Technology program. It will take a year and a half, and a couple thousand dollars or so, to do this. I put in my application today, and sometime in the coming days I'll take the aptitude exam. I don't plan on starting courses till this Winter--although if a "slot" opens this Fall (there's a waiting list) I'm not sure I'm ready to take it. It all depends. The instructors tell me that I can't exactly just pick and choose separate courses. I pretty much have to take the whole program.
I'm too old to think of this program as a way to a new career. But since I haven't been able to start a career with the education I have, I don't have much to lose--and I've lost too much already.
* * *
After visiting the Tech Center, I went to a comic book store and was looking through their small press books. I came upon a smattering of "Modern" issues from the late Seventies. Now, as I mentioned before there was a publisher named Charlton that was basically a DC knockoff house. Modern took up where Charlton left off by reprinting Charlton's back catalog. They only lasted a couple years.
The reason I know this was because most of the time when I was a kid, the comic books I got came from cheap three-packs bought at the five-and-dime, the supermarket, or Woolworth's. When they ran out of Whitman or Charlton, they threw in Moderns. Anyway, I had some of these, either ones I bought myself or got from trades with neighborhood boys.
My childhood was very "consolation-prize" calibur. It was rare that I got exactly what I wanted and usually had to settle for the "Brand X" knockoff. The TV ads made me TOO brand-conscious. But at the same time, I could sometimes be happy with the knockoffs because through them I could make something of my own, that wasn't 100% Madison Avenue/Hit Parade/Next Year's Cliché.
If there's a "genuine article" me out there, I wonder how he's doing these days. Your Brand X has been sitting on the shelf too long, and someday, the revenge of Brand X will come upon the world.