David Soubly

THE GAME.

I used to play a game as a kid called Chutes and Ladders. You probably did, too. You might have known it as Snakes and Ladders. It’s based on the Indian game Moksha Patam, probably invented about eight hundred years ago.

Chutes and Ladders was very easy to learn, so kids of all ages could play it. Basically, each player rolled dice, advanced their piece, and moved upward on a board square by square. If a player landed on a ladder, the player ascended the ladder, which meant...

Maybe you’ve had “Jim”s in your life, maybe not.

There are two Jims I remember from my days in the Ford Parts and Service IT organization. I’ll start with the first Jim.

The first Jim really defined “rough around the edges.” He was an old-school COBOL programmer working with IBM’s IMS (Information Management Systems) databases. He was also a man with few, if any, social graces. Not that it mattered to him. He was a stocky Black guy, craggy face set in perpetual scowl — or, at least in a...