I knew what I wanted to be when I rather young. It wasn’t the typical kids thing: a policeman or a fireman. I definitely didn’t want to be a soldier. Nothing against soldiers but World War II was over and I was sure there would never need another soldier. They were calling it the war to end all wars. If I had a kids’ type dream it was to be a cowboy.
I watched all the Saturday morning westerns especially Hop-along-Cassidy, Gene Autry, and my favorite — Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Did you know he never killed anyone? He could shoot any gun out of anybody’s hand. He also had Bullitt (his dog) and Trigger (his now stuffed horse). I don’t know why I wanted to be a cowboy. Maybe it was because we played cowboys all the time. I even hat a white cowboy hat.
The only thing I knew about cowboys was that they punched cattle (what’s that?) and protected good people from bad people. I did have dreams about living on a ranch. The dream was silly. I never really liked being on a farm and when I heard how much poop you had to shovel. Well, lets just say the glamour was gone.
My real more adult dreams came about at age 10 or 11. My first and highly practiced dream was to be a Hollywood stunt man. That’s because Austin (my best friend) and I wanted to fake fight and fall off tall buildings. I did not give a single thought to breaking bones. Neither did Austin. He proved it by jumping out of the second story window of our classroom. He limped for a long time.
My big dream, my secret dream was to be an architect, weird for grade school. The first time I looked at a house plans book I was hooked. While my friends were buying or stealing comic books most of my allowance was spent on house design books.
Most of the kids in my grade school went to Tech after eight-grade graduation. It was closer and consider easier. I chose Central, a pre-university school. I nearly died trying to get through the school listed as one of the top high schools in America. I should have gone to Tech. But I held on to my dream and went on to the University of Nebraska to reach my dream. I got exceptional grades in design. Not so much in math. My professor took me for coffee one day and told me straight out. Your math skills are so weak you will never be able to design anything over two stories. There are so many trying to get in the architectural field at that time that he doubted I would ever make it.
I was at a loss. What would I do? I was selling shoes part-time and my boss wanted me to quit school and come work full time. He did not know I was being encouraged to give up my dream. I parlayed the offer into the highest salary I could and settled to be a shoe salesman. I knew the company was expanding and they wanted to put me inline for managerial position in any part of the country I wanted.
Several months later I was coming out of church and told my best friend I was offered a managerial position in any state I wanted. I asked him to move to California with mw. He said he couldn’t, he was going to Canada to Bible School. Why don’t you come with me? On the spur of the moment I decided to go with him and had to get everything together in two weeks. I now had dreams of Canada. I was disillusioned. There were no mountains. The wind howled constantly. The land was flat enough to see my home back in Nebraska. The school was old and falling apart, and I had more students in my university classes than they had in the entire school.
None-the-less, it was what God wanted. I graduated and spent 37 years doing what I loved. I just didn’t know I loved it until I got found it. I did get to fulfill my dreams. They just changed.
Did you end up doing what you dreamed you would do as a child?
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