I wrote my first creative story in fifth grade.  I got a kick out of placing it in Neatsfoot City, not so loosely based on the Neatsfoot oil that I used to soften my baseball glove.  I received no support for writing it. It wouldn’t help me to become a professional something.  

That same year I wrote my first letter.  It was to NASA.  I asked them what I needed to do to become an astronaut.  That effort also crashed into a brick wall.

Fifty five years later, I am retired from a twenty five year career and looking ahead.  What do I want to be when I grow up?

I have a friend who teaches at the local university.  Three years ago I bumped into her in a park.  She told me about a Beatles lecture she was giving in one of her classes.  I was welcome to sit in.  I made a mental note of the date, time, and location.

I showed up to an empty room.  I went to the office to find out what was wrong.  There was a catalogue with a list of university classes.  I had shown up a day too late.  But I noticed that my friend was teaching a poetry class in ten minutes.  It was the first day of that class.  

I impulsively went there and sat down among a bunch of twenty year olds with desks arranged in a friendly feeling circle.  I asked the person next to me if I could borrow a pen and paper.  My friend said that I could sit in on that class, but would have to register officially if I wanted to stay after that.  Within ten minutes she had us all writing poems in response to her prompt.  We would then read them aloud.  That was a terrifying prospect, but writing the poem was surprisingly easy.  The last creative piece that I had done was in fifth grade.

In the last three years I have taken nine university courses in writing both poetry and prose.  At first, I felt in over my head.  But I am slowly becoming more comfortable.  Socially, I consider myself to represent diversity.  And for the most part I feel like one of the guys.  I guess this is what I want to do when I grow up.