The Long and Winding Road ...

Yes, the Beatles, too. I'm that old. But as I was driving to work today, I thought about the long and winding road ... both figuratively and literally. For a long time, I lived near the Country Club area in Lincoln, which meant that I could drive downtown in 3.4 minutes! Then we moved ... to our beloved Pond House ... in the city but still seems bucolic. And then my drive-time changed ...  25 minutes of planning or retrospection, depending on which way my car was traveling. It's a beautiful drive ... along Holmes Lake, winding along Capitol Boulevard, lined with pear trees that remind me of the seasons. I drive past the Children's Zoo ... a place visited by my children, my nieces & nephews, and now the grandchildren. Past my son's high school ... which he views as some of his "best" years ... and finally ... into the beautiful granite & marble building that houses EducationQuest and its sister affiliates. (If you look closely, you will see me on the 5th floor. Okay ... no, but it is where I office.) 

But the figurative journey is more difficult to capture on paper. When I grew up, girls became teachers or nurses. That pretty much encompassed the life choices. Never one to play to the crowd ... I grew up wanting to be an attorney. Life intervened and teaching became my profession. And I loved that, too. (You will sense a common refrain among my many and checkered "vocations" ... that I loved them all.) I met some life-long friends ... had a lot of fun ... and erroneously taught 4 classes of junior high students to capitalize the seasons of the year. (Really, Summer doesn't get its own capital letter? Yes, I now understand the exception for personification.) I taught first at the South Dakota School for the Deaf ... where I was immersed into the struggles of students who lived in a world of silence. I then taught at a junior high in Lincoln ... immersed in the struggles of students who grew up without a supportive family. Those were good years ... for all of us, especially my kids who were doted on by my fellow teachers. (Years later, when my son went off to the Air Force Academy ... my "teacher friends" sent him care packages and then attended his graduation!) 

After awhile, we moved back to my hometown and I thought again about law school. The next best thing came along ... a chance to work as a financial aid director (yep, knew nothing) and learn all about statutes and the Federal Register. I was the oddball ... loved learning the regs. Loved helping my students find the money for college. But still wondering ... what about law school? 

So more on that in Part 2 of the Long and Winding Road because now it's time to start my day. I don't know if it's relevant to lay out all the bits and pieces of my life's work. But it's all part of the puzzle because I think that all of my work prepared me for and led me to EducationQuest. My work as Executive Vice-President (surely it deserves capitals, too!) is  the capstone of my career. It's a pretentious word ... but it's the right one!