1024 A Regret

Monday, December 18, 2006

When I was little, when other kids wanted to be policemen, or cowboys, or veterinarians, or beauticians, I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Most people, including my parents, didn't even know what that was. I read about it in a book in about fifth grade, and I knew right away that's what I wanted to do, what I was meant to do.

When I graduated from high school in 1962, I still wanted to be a forensic pathologist.

There were a whole heap of barriers.

I hated high school chemistry. What I didn't know then was that our chem teacher was very bad. He was the local veterinarian, had never had any teacher training, and ours was his first teaching experience. Small mountain school. Things might have been different with a decent teacher.

I didn't think I'd be going to college, didn't even apply until after graduation, and then to only one school, where "everyone" decided I should go, and where there was no track leading to anything medical.

Plus, by then I had learned my place as a female. Forensic pathologists, like police officers, surgeons, and anything else of any import, were male, and that was that. I was not emotionally strong enough at that time to attempt to buck the attitudes (although I majored in math, and was usually the only female in the math classes).

I think I would have been very good at it, I really do.

I sometimes wonder how different my life might have been.
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