The boy who often played with his blocks
Entertaining himself with all the possibilities
The same one who played in the backyard sandbox
Endlessly creating fantasy structures
Who loved to explore the nearby swamp
Filled with wonder being in the natural world
Learning to identity the flora and fauna
Portrayed using watercolors and pastels
Who graduated to mechanical drawing
Drafting architectural designs
While playing with mathematical concepts
That was me growing up
And that is me through all the years since
Considering the trajectory of my life
That child was always present
Finding ways to have his kind of fun
Becoming the young man driving a delivery truck
Solving a daily geometry packing problem
Efficiently loading random box sizes and weights
While dreaming up kite and sundial designs
Who became the person teaching himself to code
On the job constructing an enterprise application
Inventing an affordable wide area database system
Before the internet was a thing
Working for a nonprofit providing for those in need
Doing no harm and helping the helpers
When approached with a business proposition
To do good and do well
Deciding to trust in my two young partners
Doing the right thing by each other
And by our valued staff and clients
The key to our success
But for me it was not what I call work
To make a living using logic
Building software devising tools
To ease the burden of record keeping
And now that I am retired I continue
As a volunteer in our local nature association
Contributing my technical skills
Doing what I know how to do
With a digital camera to collect specimens
And paint the beautiful scenes I see
Walking around observing everything
Connecting me back to the child within
Enjoying myself creating website content
Thinking up ways to build it up and out
Fulfilling requests for new functionality
Assisting in the habitat restoration
This gives me satisfaction
Contributing to a good cause
Putting logic and my imagination to good use
In service of good people
