Oh, the places you will go---or come back to . . . .

I'm doing some revising on my manuscript after finally receiving comments from a reader hired by the University of Nevada Press. This reader recommended that U of N accept the manuscript, with revisions. So, over the next few weeks, I'll be concentrating on some of the general suggestions in an effort to improve the manuscript.

The editor-in-chief cautioned me, however, to avoid sacrificing my own integrity to satisfy the suggestions of one reader. The challenge, therefore, is to create a balance between making helpful changes to satisfy the needs for a University of Nevada publication and retaining those segments in question that I still deem important to satisfy the audience I've already attracted through my first two books.

One area where I'll devote the most effort is an introduction which ties all the stories together and provides a focus. I've been working on the introduction for the past couple of weeks. It chronicles my educational journey as a country hick and eventual decision to return to my hometown as a teacher. I'm working with a direct parallel. It's the story of Sandpoint, how it has evolved from a quiet, relatively unknown farming and logging community to its present small-town artsy, craftsy, recreational appeal.

Through this evolution, I saw my own personal growth as a person and teacher while adapting to outside influences affecting the town. I'll assert, however, that in spite of the backgrounds or experiences of students I was meeting during my career, some basic principles are timeless when it comes to working with kids because some aspects of kids never change.

While writing this introduction, I'm struck with how limited our choices for career opportunities were when I went through high school and college in comparison to to what kids are doing these days. We were also fairly programmed into following a few pathways in our lives. At the core was the American dream: the house, the kids, the cars. For career-oriented women, the career choices generally included secretary, teacher, or nurse. At the time I went through college, if you spent more than four years, there must be something wrong with you. And, when you did graduate, you went straight to work on that career.

So, when I hear stories about our graduates and what they're up to these days, I'm always amazed at the opportunities and choices they have in today's world. They definitely break all the standards that we were presented as we faced our future.

For example, most kids don't graduate from college in four years these days. Some take five, six or even seven years. In some cases, this is economics; in others, it's their sense of adventure, which inspires them to take a year off here and there and head to virtually any corner of the world. When I was in college, if someone went to Europe, it made headlines. Nowadays, when you talk to college students and they AREN'T squeezing in a semester or year-long exchange to a foreign country, you wonder why.

Another phenomenon I've discovered is that it doesn't matter what your college major happens to be--- you may end up doing something totally unrelated, at least, for a while. I've heard about students with specific degrees from prestigious private colleges taking up forest-fire fighting. Yesterday, I learned that one of my students who went through high school as an aspiring journalist is taking a job next week as a cop. "Yup, she likes the sirens, the badge and all," her dad told me.

I hear frequently from Bryant Jones as he writes from his community in far-off China where he's teaching English. I'm sure that's a departure from his University of Vermont degree. I'm still learning all the details about Stacie Ostrom who's taking off next week on a world tour with an entertainment group. Yet another former student visited with me yesterday and told me he's back here in Sandpoint working at the local airport. He earned a degree in aircraft maintenance and he'll probably stick around here, especially with the potential that exists for him in the big building right behind my barn: Quest Aviation.

Another student, Tasha, who has the people skills and training to go anywhere in the world recently expressed her thrill at actually returning to Sandpoint to pursue her career through Coldwater Creek. In yesterday's paper, I read about Jillian Sturm who took a break from her formal education, aimed at a medical career, to work at a remote village in Ethiopia.

The opportunities have certainly expanded since my time spent as a youngster in Sandpoint, Idaho, dreaming of what I'd do with my life when I grew up. Whether it's "getting" to spend one's career in this once-podunk town that nobody ever heard of or having the liberty to veer off course from a standard track or traveling to the far ends of the earth, I think kids these days are pretty fortunate.