Meet George Jetson
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the cartoon series The Jetsons. Created in 1963 it pretty much takes the opposite approach, timeline wise, that is, to The Flintstones. I thought it was a visually clever cartoon. Unfortunately, none of its predictions for the future have come to pass, which is quite disappointing. It has been 50 years and you’d think some of it would be a reality. Yet, we have no flying cars, instant meals from a machine or automatic conveyor belts that shower and dress us in the morning. Alas, we still don’t have dogs that talk like Astro, albeit with a limited vocabulary, either.
Much to my dismay, one aspect of the future they got right was that people would still be slaving away at boring jobs for thankless bosses. George’s boss, Mr. Spacely, was quite the grouch and poor old George was always being blamed for something whether his fault or not. My dad worked for years as a personnel manager in the jewelry industry which was quite huge in our hometown of Attleboro, MA back in the day. He would often tell me stories of the annoying things his bosses would do and I couldn’t help but picture Mr. Spacely with all his bluster. Though I would also, on occasion, get a mental image of Larry Tate from the old Bewitched TV series. A smarmy kind of guy that was great at taking undeserved credit and dolling out equally undeserved blame to his subordinates.
Either way, the working world did not have much appeal to me and I have spent many years, as I like to tell people, working hard at not working hard. I have been self-employed for over 30 years, mostly inspired by my father’s tales of woe and his eventual foray into being his own boss with several businesses. I, like my father have had varying success, ranging from very little to none at all. But, hey, it’s a living.(not really) Unfortunately, very few people took to my original idea where I stayed home and they sent me money. So, I am currently selling nostalgic pop culture at Blast From The Past. Stop by if you are in Falmouth, MA and pick up an item or two from your childhood or you could stay home and just send me a check. Some dreams die hard!