Thirty Years Ago...

Thirty years ago I was a young father.  I had a one-and-a-half year old daughter, I'd been married for four and a half years, and the day was pretty bright, with clear skies.  I'd gotten up at 4 am and gotten into my car, drove three hours south to LaCrosse, Wisconsin.  I was installing a time & attendance system for a client who had a large number of locations - I was doing the corporate office first.  Because I was the only person in my office who had been trained on the particular version of the software, I was kind of The Guy.  Any support questions, any problems, any issues - it was me.  My employer was still coming to terms with technology, which was both a blessing and a curse.

In the previous year, I'd been sent to Dallas to train on this new software.  The company we distributed for had purchased another company that wrote a time and attendance system which ran on the IBM AS/400 Minicomputer.  Now, before you start yelling at me, it's important to remember scale.  That is, the PC was known (and is still) as a Microcomputer.  A Minicomputer was larger, typically used by more than one person, and functioned in many ways.  The AS/400 used both dumb terminals and terminal-emulation software to permit clients to connect.  At the time it was just beginning to move into the "server" space where it could deliver files or data to clients where more calculations would be done.  Most clients did all of their work on the main computer, so no calculation on the remote station meant that the only data traveling across a network was the stuff on the screen.  It was a fairly secure method of operation, as remote agents couldn't break into the database without breaking security.

I got on-site and configured the software quickly, then we went over the daily, weekly, and period operations, followed by the once-in-a-while things like daylight savings changes on the timeclocks.  It was when we broke for lunch I overheard a radio in a nearby cube talking about an explosion.  I didn't know what was happening, and I was focused on getting the job done.  A few years before, while my wife was pregnant, there had been a news story of a young mother who's car had slid off the road, into a flooded ditch.  In the spring time around here, you can get temperatures up to the 60s above snowpack, melting a great deal.  With the ground still frozen and insulated with snow, that water pools on the surface, and then when the sun sets, the temperature can drop quickly below freezing.  

This woman's car had gone into a flooded ditch which had a think layer of ice on it.  She was pregnant, and had a baby in the back of the car.  She got her baby out, across the ditch, and saw in the distance a farmhouse.  She started across the field.  She was found, dead, with her baby, also dead, in her arms, the next day.  As a young husband, hearing that news story terrified.  My wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time, and we had not yet gotten cell phones.  A few weeks later, her employer offered up a new benefit - we could, through payroll deduction, obtain cell phone service and cell phones.  It took us quite literally seconds to make that decision.

So I had a personal cell phone.  I was one of a few people at my employer who had one.  And I had told my supervisors that I would not be giving them that number.  I had to carry a pager due to the fact that I was often the only one who could resolve issues for some of my customers - not because I was difficult, but because I was certified on an increasing number of unusual systems.  Every previous employee who my employer hired and assigned to work with me and learn what I do did, became very useful and helpful, and within a year left to work for other organizations.  I am still wired to be loyal, so I stuck with it.  Having to pay for my cell phone use, I was conserving the minutes and limited number of text messages to insure I didn't increase our expenses over the minimum we could barely afford at the time.

So I was in LaCrosse, using one of the desk phones at my client, I had called my employer's 800 number to check in while I was on "lunch" to make sure nothing was waiting for me.  I'd also called my wife's office on their 800 number to let her know how things were going.

"There was an explosion next to a daycare" was what she told me.  I was horrified.

I finished the training, confirmed we had connectivity to all of our terminals (people called them timeclocks, but we were told we should use the word "terminal" because they were data collection devices that could be reprogrammed to collect additional information, production information, or many other pieces of data).  After making sure the people who would be using and managing the system were as comfortable as they could be, I gathered up my tools and documentation and went out to my car, about 6:30 pm.  It had already been a long day, but the route I was about to drive home was also the route which we had begun taking to visit my mother-in-law in Iowa.  Our previous route, which was shorter on mileage, was much longer on time as it relied on all local 2-lane roads.  Aside from a few sections up near our home, the road wound in and through dozens of small towns in Southern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa.  

Many people will think of Iowa as a flat plain, and that is true of western and central Iowa.  Eastern Iowa has a wide variety of elevation and is picturesque.  As are parts of southern Minnesota.  The glaciers which rolled over much of the region were not as successful in that area, and much of the melting ice created wide, broad river valleys along with the bluffs and higher elevations as the material the glaciers plowed south melted.  So my journey northwards was through interesting territory, thankfully.  Our longer path to Iowa through Wisconsin did offer us regular stops which did come in quite handy with young children who frequently wanted to get out of the car.

But as I drove north as the sun was setting that evening I can remember listening to President Clinton talking about what they did know, and what they were figuring out.  Fortunately, thanks to an alert policeman who had stopped him for other reasons, the bomber was already in custody, and they were going to be able to make a solid case.

I got home in time for the 10 pm news, and watched.  My wife was telling me about feeding our daughter, watching them carry dead children out of the wreckage.  Both of them had tear-streaked faces as the footage ran again.  I wasn't able to maintain my composure, either.  I know there are many who believe the death penalty for certain crimes is barbaric and cruel.  I am absolutely certain that, in this case, the perpetrator (yes, I remember his name and face, but I'm not going to give him any further notoriety by placing it here) deserved what he got.  

My father wrote a number of local history books, and that was probably a little bit of what got me interested in all history.  Unfortunately, some of that history is grim and traumatic.  I wonder how the events of Waco, Oklahoma City, New York, the Pentagon, Pennsylvania, and the current administration will be portrayed in the future.  I do recall being opposed when George W. Bush created the Homeland Security department after 9/11.  It seemed then like a potential gestapo in the hands of am unbalanced dictator, but I was assured "this is America, we can't have lunatic dictators."  Well, it looks like two in two-and-a-half centuries is more than enough.  

Last time, we were able to secure our future for 248 years.  Now we're looking at the events people will be looking back on 250 years from now. Or at least I'm sure hoping they are able to look at the events and say "thankfully they were successful and the criminals were caught."