Fathers Day

When I was about 6 years old my dad bought me an Apple IIe for christmas.

Certainly he's not the only dad who ever bought his kid a computer, but my dad would seem to be the least likely dad to do something like this. It's because he worked in a factory, and the highest tech item that he would use at work was a press break. Maybe a drill, depending on your definition of high tech.

But you see, he had books. He wasn't your typical factory worker in that regard. And by "he had books" I do not mean that he had a bookcase or merely a couple hundred books laying around. He had over 10,000 books - I counted them once just to figure out how many there really were. He wasn't an idiot by any means, and while he made choices for his family that ended with him working in a factory, it's not like he couldn't have been anything else.

Anyhow, he thought that computers would be the future. What better way to let your kid be a part of that future than to get them a computer? It cost over $3000 for all the accessories and the computer itself, which was a lot of money in the early 80s. These days people would balk at paying half that much for a computer in today's dollars.

Was it worth it? Every real job I ever had was made possible because of knowledge that came to me starting with that simple $3000 investment. I would not have had any of the neat jobs that I have had if he didn't make that sacrifice.

Happy Father's Day 2010.