Kids got me thinking

How many of us who are in our sixties ever thought about what we would do with our lives when we were in middle school? Of course, in 1957 and 1958 we went to junior high school - middle school hadn't been invented yet.

Last week Kerry Mansir invited a number of people from the community, including me, to come to the Wiscasset Middle School to talk about our careers. Among the speakers were a police officer, a banker, and a veterinarian. Anyone my age would assume they were all men. They were all women.

And that's where it all started. Those of use who were speakers were provided with some questions - one of which was how I first got interested in this occupation. Not only did I not think about what I wanted to do with my life in junior high school, I didn't think about it in high school either. I went to college because I loved being a student, I loved to learn, it would be fun - but most important - I would find a husband.

And so I told these middle school kids that I was halfway through my senior year in college before it dawned on me that there was not one possible prospect in sight who might fill the role of husband. What to do. Ah, I thought - go to graduate school - certainly I would meet someone there. So I was accepted as a graduate student in history at Clark University. Along about August, however, I found out I wasn't getting the loan I had applied for. So - what to do. Luckily I had taken enough education courses to teach, and had done my student teaching, so I scrambled around to find a teaching job. I got a phone call from the principal at Manchester High School, in Manchester, Conn. to teach high school history and special education. I had never heard of special education, but the principal talked me into it. As it turned out, I loved it.

So, how did I get interested in this occupation of reporter/editor, these kids in 2008 wanted to know. At the age of 29 I got pregnant (years ago, we couldn't say pregnant, we had to say "expecting") so I decided to just work part time. I saw an ad in the Hartford Courant for a "stringer" (a reporter who gets paid by the column inch, or by the story) for the town of Terryville. So I applied and got the job. And I loved it. But in those days you didn't tell your employer you were pregnant because you would get fired. When they eventually found out, they didn't fire me, so my work must have been good enough.

Another question the kids asked: "What was the path to getting my job (education, training, internship, experience)?" And so I said education was really the only one of the four - but I was extremely fortunate to have had extraordinary history and English professors at the University of Maine at Orono. They taught me to write, to reason, to be logical, to be persuasive. But I didn't know one thing about being a reporter until I started working. I learned by listening to grouchy old men yell at me over the phone after they had gotten my stories - which I sent by teletype. Internships? I don't remember anyone being an intern in those days, but what a great idea, I told the kids. I had a friend who decided to go back to law school a few years ago, started working as a lawyer and hated it. Yes, kids, before you put a lot of time, money and effort into a career, go spend some time with someone who's already doing it…

There wasn't a question about money, but I inadvertently got to it by answering the question, "What's cool about your job?" After being a student, a wife, a mother, a waitress, a teletype operator, a stringer, a public relations director, a secretary, a volunteer director, a development director, an advertising director, and a few other jobs I've probably forgotten about along the way, I've found you can work for a lot less money if it's a job you're passionate about. So what's cool about my job? You can't write about anything unless you understand it, so I'm always, always learning. Sometimes what I write helps people.

And that's "way cool," as one of my daughter's says.