My dad died in 1986 but when he was alive he graduated from high school in 1959, went into the Air Force and got out just ahead of the Vietnam War (so he didn't have to serve over there), went to work for Delta Airlines, worked his way up to middle management, and kept the job until cancer forced his retirement a year before he died.
My mom was a bookkeeper who got pregnant at 20. I was the result, and she always seemed to hold it against me that she got press-ganged into being a housewife and mother by her ultra-traditional husband (apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess). She lived off what he left us before hooking up with my stepfather in 1990 (they're still together) and they've been running a woodworking and stained-glass craft shop in Delaware since 1998.
Fun fact: On the day I was born my dad was 35 and my mom was 21, in case anyone wonders about my taste for much younger girls to date.