Family Tree by Signe Wilkinson for April 03, 2024

I was a nerd in high school—took the STEM classes, studied hard, got good grades. All my friends were nerds. We grew up to become engineer nerds and scientist nerds and computer nerds. We all had good jobs that were enjoyable and satisfying and paid well, and we all continued to hang out together and have good times. The cheerleaders got pregnant and got married (often in that order), the jocks quit playing, got fat, and went from one low-paying, mind-numbing job to another, I don’t know about the rest because I was too busy enjoying my computer nerddom.

Nerds are good people, Twig.

She’s got an answer for everything. I bet she winds up marrying a nerd!!

I was a nerd in high school. I became a hippie. After a while I learned a trade. In my 40s I went back to school for a year and learned programming. It was easy, involved no heavy lifting or getting burned, and paid better. As my friend who helped me get my start said about programming, “It’s a racket.”