One Pharmacist’s View
Labor day and less labor
My daughter Lesli, wife Pat and myself headed our car south Sunday morning toward Dallas. We drove out of the ancient two-lanes of Oklahoma onto the prosperous superhighways of North Texas. We were headed to Bedford to help my best friend, Virgil Guy, celebrate his 90th birthday. About 60 or so friends and relations gathered there at Virgil’s home there in Bedford.
Everyplace that Virgil and Jackie Guy have lived has benefited from the hard work Virgil labored on for that area. And people remember it.
Virgil was a tireless worker for his newspaper, The Allen Advocate and his town, Allen. Were it not for him, Highway 48 would have been removed from the state highway system of highways and left to languish as another forgotten dirt road.
Virgil worked hard for our town and I’ll not go into all the stuff he did for the school and the city back in those days when it seemed everything about and connected to Allen and its schools were coming unglued. He worked hard with Atwood and Gerty residents who lost their schools and wanted to join the Allen district. He made a big difference for them and as it turned out, he made a big difference for the Allen School District, too. I could write this whole article about what Virgil and Jackie Guy did for this community. Instead, I’d rather just say, “Thanks, Virgil and Jackie” for being a best friend.
I couldn’t help but ponder this day we call Labor Day as we drove down into the heart of Texas. I wondered what people would do for a living after we get everything computerized. Well, besides talking and texting and twitting on our cell phones, I wondered how we would earn enough to feed ourselves and pay our electric bills. I mean, seriously. More and more of our jobs are being taken by computers. Even Pharmacists. Some hospitals have just about replaced them with the little boxes. And If it weren’t for unions, railroad trains would be speeding here and there, delivering their cargo with not one human on board.
The airways would be flying about carrying millions and piloted solely by computers. Well, we already have the drones. Pilot Unions are fi ghting new regulations passed this year that would allow the big cargo jets to fly with just one pilot. Remember the 1930s? Pan Am put their big Clippers in service over the seas. The Boeing-314s only carried 22 passengers but up on the upper level hosted an air crew of fi ve. Two pilots. A radioman and navigator (who had a 7 foot long navigation table) shared space with a flight engineer. When the big jets came along the airlines wanted to get rid of the excess baggage but the “excess baggage” fought back saving many jobs, so far.
But do we need ‘em? Safety vs Jobs? Well, mark me down for the pilots. When Captain “Sully” Sullenberger faced a problem taking off and both engines flaming out, he used his own human computer (his brain) and made an instant decision to ditch in the Hudson River. All souls aboard were rescued almost without incident as the big jet settled and sank in the water.
And looking west who can forget the Australian A-380 (a giant Airbus with 469 people onboard) when it suffered a massive engine explosion. No doubt that if the aircraft had been under the care of a computer what would have happened. It would have promptly crashed. No argument there. But the aircraft’s Captain, a guy named Richard Crespigny, used his brain to guide this flying nightmare to a safe place called the airport in Singapore. No one died that day either. Thanks pilot unions.
Anyway, I hope all of you had a good and easy Labor Day and made it home safely. Be sure and go to Church Sunday. And yes, I’m still glad they let us drive our own boats down at the lake.
Wayne Bullard, DPh