Will I work again, did I ever work?

I was cut loose from my first job at Earlham after five years. That was painful, and unwilling to do something that smacked of work I didn't settle for any job, because that first job wasn't like my concept of work, but rather joy that happened to pay well. It was a year or more before I started my second job with DEC. For most of that time, I had more than enough to keep me busy, and i learned a lot on my own, reading ACM publications that I have accumulated and not read, as well as finding many things in the library to read. The most memorable was the book by Friedman and Scwartz, A Monetary History of the United States.

After nearly a quarter century working for DEC in many capacities, but never enough, I a quick reentry doing what I had been doing impossible, as did many of my peers, so I decided on something of a career change. Back to my childhood when computers and robots were one and the same, scifi. I want computers that are in the real world, moving around, interacting with it.

Naively I took a welding class thinking "how hard can it be?" Whoa, that is real word, with a lot of technical stuff to know if you are doing the job right. But then I realized that sticking stuff together wasn't enough, so I took machine tool, cad, and eventually robotics and authomation, all at the NH Tech colleges, the most expensive such schools of all the States in the US. Still, relative to the kinds of courses common in the tech world, the course were relatively cheap, and paying my own medical makes just about anything else pale in comparison.

I have really grown to respect the other skilled jobs, and especially the trades and manufacturing. And I have grown to worry about the education system in our country and the reaction of industry to seek to bring in skilled labor from other countries rather than support training them in the US. And I have worked with many students, many more than a few years out of high school, and they are smart people, as smart as I in all the essential attributes, but they have been paid way less than I have relative to our relative knowledge and experience.

But back to the question at hand. Will I work again? Well, I haven't really had to work, so I'll be damned if I start now. But I do need to start generating income. But I also have more classes I want to take. How much longer can I go before I really must get paid?

Hey, why not do as the Republicans do? Borrow as much as i can to live today and then just let someone else pay it back after I'm dead....