by Laura Conaway

Wayne Tucker writes that he was glad to hear LL Cool J and Crazy Eddie on a recent podcast:

Both featured prominently in the soundtrack of my life in the mid '80s, when I was a bike messenger in Manhattan. It is the only job that left me feeling depressed on Friday afternoons because, even though I was in my 20s, had money in my pocket and was free in NYC, I couldn't hope to achieve the measure of fun that I could expect when I returned to work on Monday morning.

I also suppose that it's some sort of economic indicator that my bike messenger paychecks in 1986 were for precisely the same amount that is on my teacher's paychecks today. I don't mean that the figure is the same in adjusted dollars; it's the same series of digits. What is more, the modest sums on my 50-hour-week teaching checks don't reflect a prorated summer break; the checks stop coming when the school year ends in May. It's amazing what a quarter of a century, a Masters degree and 5 years in the same job can do for you.

Tucker teaches in Sierra Vista, Arizona.