I married rather late in life (age 42), and I started my career at the age of 45 because I did not want all the pressure of maintaining us to fall on my wife. Before marriage, I was content to work when I needed to, free of the onerous trappings of careerhood. However, I never deliberately burned any bridges.
     Nor am I very nostalgic, but I still like to go back to my “salad days”¹ and some of my more memorable non-careers, including one that involved working as a private contractor on a military base. In this particular job, I was having a problem doing my job done because a government employee was not doing their² job. I mentioned this to the person’s boss in passing, trying not to be too critical. My complaint was heard; my road-block was lifted. My contract was nearing completion, after which my employer would assign me to another contract. It was a good job.
    Little did I know what was coming. The next time I was in the field, with another government employee, I learned my roadblock person was now my enemy; because they put me in a firing range during a live firing exercise, potentially putting my life, and my roadblock person’s colleague’s life in danger, shutting down the exercise with all the troops in the field, a huge expense to the government. I had been set up. So, like a medieval knight who had been dishonored³, I dutifully went to base to fall on my sword to save my private employer any grief; they had lots of contracts on other bases. I was
consequently banned from that base, and assuming they have good records (which is doubtful)⁴, I am still banned (I used this as an excuse once to avoid going to a graveside service on base; there were plenty of mourners, and one can attend graveside services by watching almost any British police TV series; the British love a good funeral with lots of pious mourning).
     I also called my boss to explain why and how I had been set up (I had successfully completed the assignment in spite of my defeat on the field of battle). I was thanked me for falling on my sword, was told that I would be hired me for another contract elsewhere, and was never contacted me again. Nor would I ever work for another private contractor. That period of my “salad days” were over.
     But there were victories I would snatch from the jaws of defeat. I would have considered working permanently for the U.S. military…but now I knew I had dodged that bullet. And later, I would take up creative writing and became such a huge fan of medieval literature⁵: The English, French and Spanish countrysides, literally and literarily, are alliteratively littered with the bodies of knights, some green and headless, only a few of which were victorious. But even the defeated, swordless warrior becomes
immortal with the mighty pen.

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¹According to Chateaubriand, the Middle Ages begin and end with Dante and Shakespeare, respectively. Shakespeare lived in both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, because England has always been the tale of the western European donkey. But it gave Shakespeare some great opportunities for writing story.

²Gender-neutral to not identify the person involved in the incident, as that would serve no useful purpose.
³In The Song of Chanson, Roland, the bastard son and “nephew” of the king leads the rearguard out of Moorish Spain. He is surrounded and, rather than calling for help, Roland stands his ground, causing ALL HIS TROOPS to be massacred, but Roland’s honor was preserved. And the French were massacred by the Basques, not by the Moors.

⁴ I once took a 4WD vehicle to a remote area of base, where I got stuck because the 4WD did not work. I had to climb a mountain to use my line-of-sight device to be rescued. Back on base, I was told that it was my mistake, that I should have tested the 4WD in the parking lot before going to the field, to assure that the vehicle the military gave me was fully functional.
⁵ Dedicated to NMSU College Professor Gail Lavender (retired). Before taking her course, my knowledge was literarily and literally limited to Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail.” Lavender’s student-centered, fully online, asynchronous (pre-pandemic) course is literally the best literature course I have ever taken, in English, French or Spanish, and I became a bit of an expert in the Holy Grail. Also dedicated to my fellow students in the course for informing,