When I was a little boy I knew I wanted to do something different than my dad did to make a living. He was a mechanical engineer who always said he loved what he did, but to me he was always working. We just didn’t see him that much. He came home after our bedtime on most days and often worked on Saturdays. I don’t think he ever came to a little league baseball game or any sporting event when I was growing up. He did make it to most home football games when I was in high school and occasionally made it to other athletic events provided he wasn’t working on a project that had a deadline. I am not complaining. His job afforded us the opportunity to go to good schools and live a happy middle class life. One thing we seldom did was take family vacations. I did all my exploring by reading books and magazines that had a lot of photos; no doubt, this influenced me. I was also lucky that the neighborhood I grew up in had a small stream running through it and I was always fascinated by the little critters that lived in and around the stream. I am sure this stimulated my interest in wildlife biology. I spent a lot of my time trying to find and identify all the different little fish, salamanders, reptiles, and invertebrates. I had found my passion at an early age. It didn’t hurt that there were a few good television shows and documentaries, especially The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. When most children were saying they wanted to be firemen or policemen, I was saying I wanted to be a marine biologist. That career didn’t quite become a reality, but I was able to pursue my passion by combining my interest in biology with my interest in sports by becoming a high school science teacher and coach. This career, like the career of my father’s, kept me both busy and happy, but unlike my father I was able to spend plenty of time with my family, especially during the summer.
I have since moved to a lake in southern Virginia and the photo above is a road that runs along the spine of Smith Mountain, where my oldest son and his three children recently did a little hiking and a little exploring. If you look closely, you can see the place we live off in the distance in one of the photos you can see by clicking here. If you are family with a password you can click here to see family photos. My son did follow in his father’s footsteps and also became a teacher. Although he also has a passion for wildlife and the outdoors, he became a math teacher.
The picture above reminded me of a Robert Frost poem I chose as one of my top ten favorite poems for a fifth grade project the last lines go….
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Thank you Mrs. Coleman for assigning the project and thank you Dad for working so hard.