Note: This post updated on October 3, 2021
That was the way that my parents perceived me. Those were the plans that they had.
But I couldn't fit the part. Too dumb or too smart.
Ain't it funny how we all turned out.
I guess we are the people our parents warned us about.
Jimmy Buffet - "We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About" - One Particular Harbor - 1983
Growing up in St. Louis and then in Northwest Arkansas, I didn't have much chance to be exposed to Jimmy Buffet's music, aside from his most popular commercial songs. Interestingly enough, this song was published the year I graduated from high school and started college the first time.
My serious introduction to Jimmy Buffet's music came during my return to college 10 years later. One of the professors aboard my training ship, USTS Texas Clipper II was a major "Parrothead" and played entire CDs, so I heard alot of music that I might have otherwise missed, if I had just stuck with "best of" CDs.
I was supposed to have been a Jesuit Priest
Some of my earliest memories are of attending third grade at St. Gregory's, a private Catholic school in St. Ann, MO. The priests there were some of the first male figures I was exposed to that were widely respected and admired. My dad worked at a milk plant, and while I respected and admired him, I realized that factory workers did not have the social status of men of the cloth. Had my family stayed in St. Ann and had I stayed in parochial schools, I might very well have ended up as the "Jesuit Priest".
or a Naval Academy grad.
Circumstance also kept me from becoming that "Naval Academy grad". I received the required nomination (actually had two, one from my Senator, one from my Congressman), but ended up not being selected. I remember feeling crushed and I carried a chip on my shoulder the size of a battleship anchor for years.
Because I didn't attend the Naval Academy, I met my wife at the University of Arkansas, and we had 35 years together before she died suddenly and unexpectedly. Sometimes I wonder how many of my "classmates" of the USNA class of 1987 made it that long?
I ended up in the Navy anyway (at least in the Naval Reserve), first as an enlisted man, rising to the rank of E-6 as a Gunner's Mate (Guns), and I qualified (on paper at least) as a Battleship Gun Captain. I was commissioned in 1998.
Ain't it funny how we all turned out.
