The “Perfect” Life: I was destined to marry a boy from my hometown, have 2.5 children, a station wagon, a ranch-style house with a white 4-plank fence around it and be a school teacher or a nurse. This was defined as “happily ever after”.
When I was 18 years old, I had only two aspirations. The first was to be what is now termed, a “flight attendant”. Back then it was “stewardess”. The only class I truly loved was geography and my only fantasy was traveling to all those places I had read about. So many years later, I still have that grade school geography book on my bookshelves, even though the countries have changed names, politics and leaders more times than I could ever have imagined. I came from a farm near a little town in Kentucky where not a one of my immediate family, during my childhood, had ventured further than Lexington, Louisville, Frankfort or eastern Kentucky. My mother was a well-read individual with many books on her shelves. But no one ever left my hometown unless they had to and then they hurried back to it as quickly as they could.