930 Nephew

Monday, October 16, 2006

Nephew, earlier this year. He's 37 years old. He has "our" family nose and cheeks, and his mother's eyes.

When he was a child, starting at about age 3, whenever anyone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always answered, "I want to be a fireman!"

And everyone smiled and patted him on the head.

When he was a teenager, and people asked him what he wanted to do, he always said "I want to be a fireman!" And people nodded, and figuratively patted him on the head. "No, really. What do you really want to do?" Eventually he just said "I don't know."

Then he started college, on some business track that he had been guided into, like with a lot of accounting. He was living with my mother (his grandmother). He obviously wasn't happy. So my mother sat him down one night and asked him what was wrong. He said he hated the classes he was taking, and saw no future in any of it. She asked him "What do you really want to do?"

She said he looked up with tears in his eyes, and wailed "I want to be a fireman." Mom helped him to change academic track. And it was good.

He is an Orlando fire fighter.