Once upon a time, I was a federal employee, I worked as a National Park Ranger, a Forestry fire fighter and even got invited to be part of the Coast Guard search and rescue team as a helicopter pilot.
I spent many of my summers working at various seasonal jobs. My favorite was the Smithsonian museum and the Library of Congress.
I did a variety of things, since I had a science intelligence, I was put to work at these locations in the seventies.
I often lost my long term position to other who claimed to have a degree or the right this or that to have the job, while I was sent on to yet another training session and a new set of rules.
After all, it not matter I am one of those Native Americans who don't have any real home and are nomads by nature.
Well, occasionally the Congress cant balance their budget. If they were a bank client and did not balance their checkbook, they would not be able to have a bank account.
In the government time, they simply shut down when they have no more money to keep the government running.
All non essential jobs are shut down but not eliminated just in case the government gets a budget again.
This means, all those with essential jobs, including the President continue going to work but without pay.
What happens, with all those interns and others who have come to Washington to work, are sent home. If they are smart they hang around as long as possible, but at home and not at work.
The others who have jobs but are not high enough up to keep the one they are working at get transferred.
For instance, secretaries in the old days were not assistants. Just as Monica Lewinsky walked into the White house to answer phones because she was available but not hired nor cleared for the job, some of us get yanked out of our favorite project.
Those of us who hang in there get to do their projects. I was working towards a history degree which would have put me in a variety of jobs. I was working at the Library of Congress research section.
Then one morning I was not allowed to walk inside, but directed towards the Pentagon. I was now working for some man named Colin Powell, on a temporary basis, turn on my key to one place and arrive at the new location to get a parking permit!
No longer my own person with the right to make decisions for myself but under the hand of a man I had not meet before nor trained for the job.
I did have computer and office skills, but I was never trained for a military job nor for the kind of things that go on inside a high ranking military man.
This one was African American black and wondering how i would respond to his being my boss. No problem, I am Indian and never part of the greater white world.
He laughed and proceeded to tell me how i did qualify for the job. My own training in the Forestry and National Parks were not unnoted.
Apparently, he had actually had a chance to vet out his temp unlike the Clintons, and looked at my background, even the one that was not on my work history.
He also knew my family name from Tennessee. I told him my grandfather had been part of the Manhattan project. He told me a few more things about my grandfather i had not known and he was still alive.
My other grandfathers, I had three were in the military, the great uncle was in the Pacific in the navy for both world wars. While the Canadian one had gone to Egypt, his father was one of the first pilots for WWI.
He ended up working as a law clerk after he broke his back parachuting. He knew Cairo and Morocco, very well.
He decided I could stay but out of his own sphere of expertise. He found out i was working on history and ancestry of historical figures.
I was working on the Thomas Jefferson files at the time, which many other individuals have also worked, I did present the Thomas Jefferson mini library of books.
I spent the rest of the week working on his own ancestors just as an exercise. He basically did not really need me in his office but trusted me enough not to get fired and allowed me to be part of the temporary office. Mainly I was in the briefing room, me, my computer and an empty room.
His family is quite interesting, his ancestors span the breadth of African Americans. He white ancestors go back to the American Revolution. He has Gordons and Falconers as ancestors, these are the Scots who first fought the King in Scotland and then in the new world.
This in the sixteenth century, Carnegie, Hepburn and Rockefeller, Rutherford are some of the other names of the white families in Jamaica before they emigrated to America.
He has Jamaican roots, similar to Kamala Harris and is probably related to her through her Jamaican roots.
His wife has a connection with the Bell family, that is Martha Washington's family name. One never knows who or where the families came from.
It is assumed the slavery was an issue but not always, the Walleyes or Whaleys were infamous for their abuses. Thomas Jefferson's wives family were those people and yet he fought for the rights of the slaves and allowed his half sister in law to stay in residence after his wives death.
Sally Hemmings was not born to slavery but to a line of ships captains. One never does know.
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