Life stories: 1982

 Supernova  [Previous ¦ Next]

Every bill eventually comes due: when we returned to Calgary from Kingston to marry and start my career in petroleum, we were actually heading to a black hole. My parents went supernova when they discovered my life direction, just as they headed back to their home in France. My family life thus collapsed into a nucleus of two, and I looked for no support. Sure we bought a house straight out of college, started work at Shell and rode our horses daily, but I was to dig my own grave in not resolving my own issues around father, family and societal acceptance. I lost my job in the shrinking oil sector, and found odd jobs in geology that kept me going, but I was anaesthetising myself against past hurts that drove me astray.

Relations with my Dad took a nose-dive - he had actually planned for my career in France, first at the vaunted Institut Français du Pétrole (French Petroleum Insitute), then at a major oil company in Paris, and so on as his clone. I admit that geology was my choice, but how could I have expected this and the fact that my future wife, who I had met at a time after deciding to stay in Calgary, would be blamed for this plight? This was nothing however compared to what happened with my thesis: it was used of whole cloth in my Dad's publication to be a summary of his work in N America. Did his absolute lack of acknowledgement indicate that I was considered his chattel, to be disposed of as he wished as in former centuries? It's one thing to read about it in Dickens or Balzac, it's another to live it! I soon overcame this however as my career quickly turned to computer geology; in organising continuing education classes at the local geological society, I actually introduced my Dad to my counterpart at the international geological society: that effectively launched his second career in early retirement, continuing education in N America then E Europe using his otherwise unpublished paper.

Life went on very well just the same. In-laws helped us financially in between jobs, my thesis got published in a journal of some renown, I worked with the Geological Survey, and that allowed me to stretch both in geologic data management and field work. I discovered the last third of my new country, the Arctic Islands. I actually got paid to hike, but most importantly it laid the foundations for my next career in computers. Contract work gave me the freedom to pursue continuing education in ways I hadn't seen before. This lead me also to help run courses and initiatives for local geological and computer societies. And my wife launched an artistic career in ceramics, complete with studio in converted garage and kiln in back yard (much to the consternation of our Block Watch captain across the back alley, who would burst onto the scene much later on).