The Time of Our Lives: Time-Binding with Burton Miller (2011)

We do this (time-binding) among ourselves as we communicate. We do this across generations so that each generation of humans has potential to start off where previous generations ended. We utilize experience of past as we develop present and future (Kodish and Kodish, 2001, p. 27). Burton Miller, a long-time member of The Institute of General Semantics died in 2008. The story about to be told is about an experience of time-binding that occurred in Chicago in 1960s. Miller remembers experience as having the time of our lives. It is a story about how principles of General Semantics were used to enrich lives of some who would have never been exposed to principles if left to themselves. Burton was first exposed to General Semantics in 1949. He then brought methods into a project he undertook in Chicago a few years later. At that time, Miller began working with women of various ages who were considered unemployable and who had little opportunity for advancement in life. The only training they could expect was some possible training in a remedial program that would lead to a low-income job with no future advancement opportunities. Here was where time-binding came in. This particular piece of history is important today because we can learn from Miller's successful experiences, avail ourselves of what is useful, and seek to replicate some of experiences. From what was accomplished in a different time and different place, we can begin to create new experiences, which could affect future. Not only can we learn what was done in past, we can also add to experience by making adjustments that will prepare groups of people today to time-bind prime healthy information to pass on to future generations. You see, Burton Miller did not just change lives of a group of women; he changed lives of their families and families that came after them. What was done at that time has many valuable implications for what is needed for today. The Time of Our Lives It all started when his future partner Robert Laskow became a principal owner of three data processing service bureaus. Now, Burton Miller's educational background and vocation were not in social service, nor were Laskow's. Miller had attended Northwestern University and for a time had worked in a clinic at University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) for children who were, as term was then, emotionally disturbed. He was busy working as a stockbroker with an old securities firm, but he could never forget his days at UCLA working with children. Laskow had received a B.A. and a law degree from Harvard and had a continuing interest in social problems. He had also authored a course in computer programming at LaSalle Extension University while he was practicing law. As time went by, Miller and Laskow gravitated toward a common avocation of education. Their common interest was new field of data processing. In 1963, two men from Chicago bought an almost defunct data processing service firm. They did not know it yet, but this was start of something big. This move toward data processing world would take them far from their beginnings as they focused on narrow field of key punching International Business Machines (IBM) cards. The position of key punching was an essential step in ever-emerging field of automatic data processing. Data processing in 1960s was a glamour job staffed by well-trained, sophisticated personnel. At that time, as computer age was coming into being, there was a high demand for key punch operators, with 8,000 openings in Chicago area. The occupation of keypunch operator paid well, $66 to $100 dollars a week, a great deal of money in those days. Key punch operation was a prestige activity associated with complex and tangible data processing machines, not far down line from mainframe electronic brain of those days. …