ML- I would most prefer to go back and do what you mentioned in
your last comment. I would have married the nice young man I dated
in college who was wonderful to me and became a big business
success. He didn't want me to work, either. But, nooooooooooo!
Carly Simon was singing that we should not "put ourselves on a
shelf" and women's magazines said things like "I'd rather bring
home the bacon than fry it!" So, I turned down happiness to go to
WORK!! Work did bring some happiness, but not what I had expected.

On 10/27/09, ML wrote:
> ALL OVER AGAIN?
> YIKES!!!!!!
> I'm 60 years old and if I had to start over I'd be, like, what,
> 90?? before I could get out. ha ha.
> Are we speaking science fiction stuff, like turning back the
> hands of time?
> 'Back to the 1970s'?
> Oh yeah, there I am, that young thing in the mini skirt and
> platform heels... (some things never change--the young things are
> wearing my old clothes in 2009)
> So I get to go back in time, and start over in 1971, knowing what
> I know now?
> Well, I'd do a couple things a little differently under those
> circumstances....
> I'd take the fast track to my Bachelors, and avoided the college
> transfers, and then would have finished a year or two sooner.
> That would have made it easier to get a job teaching, as there
> were more jobs available a couple years BEFORE I actually
> graduated....
> Of course that would have meant that I'd have to work 34 years
> instead of 32 before reaching age 55, which was the earliest
> eligibility to retire here....
> So I still could have retired in 2004, but with two more years of
> service, and a slightly larger pension check...
> Now this only applies if those two extra years are 1970 and
> 1971, 'cause things were better back then.
>
> EXCEPT THE PAY!!!
> Even considering that gas was 32c a gallon, and a nice new car
> could be had for $3K, teachers hereabouts were only making about
> $6-8K annual salary. I remember we hit $10K around the late
> 1970s...felt rich, but only by comparison to how poor we felt
> before that!
> After taxes, contributions to pension, union dues, etc you were
> lucky if you had $10 a month to start a savings plan. But that
> $10 went into classroom supplies that were not provided...
>
> And we certainly did not eat as well, lots of generic mac and
> cheese dinners when the end of the month neared....(ok, not THAT
> many, actually we went home to Mom's house to get a free meal
> couple times a week cause the money never lasted the whole
> month...)
> Do my friends whom I've mourned get to go back in time with me?
> Do I get to be a jr size 7 again?
> Can I wear all the pretty and sexy 4 inch heels without my feet
> screaming?
> Can I dance all night without needing three days to recuperate?
> Will I have my same good HMO or have to go back to the old
> medical coverage that didn't pay for anything preventive, didn't
> pay for anything at all pretty much until you landed in the
> hospital...
> Yeah, teaching was so much more enjoyable up until about 1990.
> Then it got really awful by around 1999.
> Hmmmm....
> Would I go back and do it again? For $7500 a year, or $75000 a
> year?
> NO WAY, I'm in the BEST next phase of life now, even if I have to
> wear 'sensible shoes'.
> I'm glad enough that I made the choice to teach (not that women
> had that many choices back in the day...), there were good times
> and bad, and the pension plan that took most of my grocery money
> out of my pay back then, provides nicely for me now. (Thank you
> PSERS for taking care of over 100K of my earnings for me...)
> If I had to just be miraculously made young again, and start
> teaching in 2009,
> NO WAY
> NO WAY
> NO WAY.
> I'd just marry that guy who I turned down, the one who didn't
> want me to work outside the home at all after we were married...
> :)

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