I would do much much better this time.

#life crisis

But I'm proud of what I did, and Google Scholar is my friend.

But I just don't want to do it anymore. I was also employed in what is now a dying trade, printing. It was good to be part of it during it's heyday, though.

WordPress, SquareSpace, GoDaddy, and every other "do it yourself without knowing Web Design" sucked the joy out of a profession I loved. I first learned Web Design in the late 90s. As all of the "do it yourself" programs increased in popularity, and as inexperienced wannabes climbed on the bandwagon and became "Web Designers" (and my "competition" ), I said "I don't want to do this any more," I didn't. I've been retired since September, but as you said, "It was good to be part of it during it's heyday, though."

my best friend was, and another friends dad did the same for a newspaper in Reading PA. My friend finished his apprenticeship then after 5 years was bought out as new methods came into play.

Was it really done by reading things backwards?

Linotype machines. After that I mostly printed business stationary on offset presses.

And yes, I can still read upside down and backwards quite well.

* Climb 250 ft up the side of a smokestack, pull 50 lbs of equipment up after me, and hang out there in sub-zero wind chill for two hours, poking a probe incrementally into the stack at prescribed time intervals

* Operate not just one but three rubber presses at once - each running at 350 degrees with an ambient air temp of 110

* Make adjustments to gas and air valves atop a furnace that is leaching chlorine gas through holes in the roof

* Scrape maggots out of hidden crevices within a band saw that has been used to cut up sides of beef

* Direct a crane operator to pour a crucible of molten steel into a mold 10 ft away from me

* Don a Class 3 chemical suit in 100+ ambient temp, then slip-n-slide down to a spigot and draw a liter of hot hydrochloric acid solution for analysis

My present working life is centered around a computer workstation. When my cubemates whine that the job is sooo stressful, I try to keep my eyes from getting stuck when I roll them derisively.

I absolutely hated being a cashier. Also for awhile I wanted to work with animals for a living (just out of college) so I applied at a kennel. They had me cleaning up dog shit all day. Another thing I don't want to do.

My mother was a grocery checker back before scanners. People don't realize what a physically taxing job this is. Next time you are at the supermarket, take a close look at the checker's hands. They look like the hands on a construction worker.

I spent some time in retail, but not so much as a cashier. Enough to know what it's like, though.

I think I would rather pick up dog shit than work in retail again.

So I never know life before scanners (they've always had them since I've worked retail). I've worked concession at a movie theater (took me years to eat popcorn again), a drugstore, Big Box, and a specialty bath products store. The only time my hands weren't horrible was at the latter (we sold fancy lotions, scrubs, soaps, etc so we were allowed to play with the testers).

Being on your feet all day (we weren't allowed to sit down except for breaks) was also rough.

As a senior citizen I must admit that I know and understand myself better than at any other time in my life.
I never married but I understand that would have been a disaster for me.
I have always done what I have did well and the best I can but to be honest I've never really had any ambition and although I have a college degree in my entire time of working, I could never say I had a 'career' but just lots of jobs, I never worked any job that required a college degree. I was always satisfied with making enough money to get by.
I have no regrets because I've come to see them as useless. We always assume that if we had it to do over again, correcting our mistakes, that our lives would have turned out so much better. But who is to say that by correcting those mistakes that we might have caused other things to turn out worse? So I just skip the regret assumptions.

I am retired and poor, being under the 100% federal poverty level but I am in good health, have health insurance that costs me next to nothing, I have enough money to pay all my bills each month with a couple of hundred left over and for some bizarre reason my credit score is over 800. I don't have to do much of anything I don't want to do except to take out the garbage on Mondays.
Plus, as a schizoid meaning that I am not a people person although I can do the social sprint but not the social marathon I can avoid them as much as I choose now.
So life is good, people not so much.

If I can't drive there or take a train, I'm not going.

Fuck airplanes.

Everything else is a promotion. And I could tell very little difference between those two.