career choices

 A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking about the limited career choices we were presented with when we were in high school. We went to a small school (52 in our graduating class) and I don't think we had a guidance counselor.  Next year we will gather for our 60th reunion.  Many of us (I'm talking about the women in the class but the men's choices were also pretty limited) did move on to other careers but back in the day the choices we were presented with were teacher (or related fields like librarian), nurse, or secretary.  Or mom, of course.  This evening one of our local TV stations was running a tribute to recent high school graduates and some of the listings showed the graduates' future plans.  Things like criminology, pre-law, all kinds of engineering, and, yes, a couple of nurses and teachers.  In my own family I have a granddaughter studying international business, and another who will be entering a design school in the fall.  She is leaning toward clothing design, but she has so many options there.  I'm excited by the fact that young people now have so many career choices.  Another friend, in another conversation, asked me, if I had realized the other career choices out there, what would I have wanted to be.  And without any thought at all, the answer came to me.  I would have liked to be an archaeologist.  My father spent his entire working life as a carpenter.  He was a voracious reader and smart, but quit school at 16 to go to work with his father.  They built many of the barns around Woodburn.  When he was in his 80s I asked him if he had had other choices what he might have wanted to be.  I thought he might say that he wished he could have gone to college and maybe be a teacher but his answer?  He said "I always thought I would like to be a plumber."