The Year 2001

One of the benefits offered by my employer is called Tenure/Compensatory Leave. Our salaries are based on a range of six or eight steps and when you've reached the top of the range—and therefore will get no more significant raises in the future—you are encouraged to take a four-week paid leave every three years once you've been at the organization for at least five years. I remembered taking such a leave at some point and was wondering how long ago it was and how many I've missed since then.

I figured out that it was in the fall of 2001 that I took my four weeks off but I couldn't remember where I had gone. I opened up my old email program to look for clues. I discovered that 2001 was a very busy year. After my trip to Seattle where I got severe bronchitis, I discovered in January I had asthma. My parents' house burned down also in January so everyone but me gathered there to help them recover.

I went to spring training for a weekend with my friend Tree who's from the Phoenix area. Mom and Dad went to Vienna, Austria in May and Sallie and I took a road trip that month to visit nearly everyone in the family. Mike and Beth got to sing at Carnegie Hall in New York. Anne's family moved from Ohio to Illinois in the summer. And I went to MN and MI for my month off. While I was there, my officemate totalled my car! But that's a whole 'nother story.