One of the things that kids, and adults for that matter, think about most is "what do I want to do when I grow up?" And by "do", they don't mean "what movie should I go see."
They mean, "what kind of job or career do I want to have?"
Most kids have early career plans of being a doctor, a rock star, a teacher, a fireman, or a president. Not me...at least as far as I remember. While I dabbled with many musical instruments...toy drums, pianos, and guitars...and the occasional "Kiss" impersonation, there are relatively few concrete memories of career choices that stuck with me for any length of time.
The first one is a big one.
The number one career choice of Gregg as a child was (drum-roll please) :
A carpet layer!
That's right. As a small boy, I wanted to be a carpet layer. You see, at some age, I witnessed the laying of carpet in my boyhood bedroom. You see, at that time in St. Louis history, it was nearly mandatory that you cover up all that old fashioned looking hardwood floor with modern wall-to-wall carpeting. If you didn't, you may as well live in a cave...or in your tool shed.
In any case, watching the carpet layers stretch the carpet with those stretchers that they banged with their knees left an indelible impression on me. Soon after, I could be found with some of my building blocks, simulating being a carpet layer.
This phase didn't last too long, however, and then I abandoned a promising career in carpet laying and moved on to my next career choice:
An Architect!
Yep, I wanted to be an architect like Mike Brady. It also helped that my dad had all of these cool looking drafting instruments. Drawing with them seemed like a lot of fun. My dad even gave me one triangle that included a french curve, lots of standard hole sizes and even some hex templates. I don't remember all the different things I could do with this, but I still have this combination triangle/french curve/etc. device.
One of my favorite activities was to go to "Open Houses" on Sunday afternoons. What kind of kid likes to look at houses? When we bought a brand new house when I was about 5th grade, I thought it was so cool that we got to pick out EVERYTHING that was in the house!
My architect career plans lasted from about 1st grade all the way to 6th grade. I was frequently caught drawing house plans on pieces of paper during school and sometimes sketching elevations on my worksheets.
In parallel with the whole home architecture thing, I hadn't lost my love of toy instruments. In fact, I had expanded this interest to now include pipe organs, thanks in part to my father's record collection. So I decided on my next career...a combo career (as many kids do) of architect and :
An Organist!
I could sit for hours listening to organ music and dream of playing like E. Power Biggs or Virgil Fox. Things got even worse when my church built a 3-manual, 35 rank pipe organ. Every week, at the end of the church service, I would run up to the balcony to watch our incredible organist, Henry Glass, play the postlude.
I wanted organ lessons! Well, my parents did some checking around and were told that if I wanted to play the organ, I should probably first learn how to play the piano. When I was entering 2nd grade, thanks in part to a grant from my grandparents, we were able to get a piano at home! I loved it and started taking lessons. Happily, I advanced rapidly and continued taking lessons through 8th grade!
During this time, I still was set on being an architect/organist but I was also gaining an interest in math and science. Then it happened. In 6th grade, a new kid came to school. He fit right in with my musical interests and in fact took it to the next level. He played the guitar...and electric guitar!
I never imagined that a 6th grader could conceivably own their own electric guitar. This guitar was an ES-335 copy and in my opinion, awesome. He took me up to a music store near his house and showed me all the great instruments hanging on the walls. I fell in love with the look of the Gibson Les Pauls and vowed to someday get one of my very own. Now that I was paying attention to guitars, I also began to notice the bands where the guitar-players used Les Pauls and I loved the sound, too!
It was around this time that I combined my musical interests, and my math and science interest, and decided that what I wanted to do was design guitar amplifiers for a living. To do this, I needed to learn all about the circuits and such, so I became determined to be:
An Electrical Engineer!
Another hobby of mine, model trains, also helped fuel this interest because I was interested in all the control systems and wiring that it took to make a nice train layout. This interest stuck with me all through high school, even through the time when we got our school's first Apple computers in 1982. I took the first course offered and was hooked. I excelled at programming. You are probably thinking that this is where I plug in my next career path, but you'd be wrong. I stuck with Electrical Engineering. Although I seriously toyed with going to school for music (yes, I did end up getting one of those Les Pauls and loved guitar!) I ended up taking the career choice more likely to provide an income.
What about all those long lost loves and interests? Well, I'll have to say that with the exception of carpet laying, each of them is still with me in some shape or form. I still love architecture and marvel at the beautiful details that are on older buildings and homes. My biggest dream right now remains moving into such a home near downtown St. Louis. I'd love to build/rehab my own, but just don't have the time. So, somehow I must earn the money for it. Unfortunately, it seems like these homes are farther out of reach each year as their popularity grows again. I still go through open houses, and house tours in these neighborhoods.
I did continue piano lessons through 8th grade, as I mentioned. I should also mention, that at this point a couple of other musical events happened. My parents gave me an Alvarez Acoustic guitar for graduation that I still use today. It must have been terribly expensive for 1980. I still use it today. In fact, many years ago I installed pickups inside and use this almost weekly for our contemporary church service. I actually have a small collection of guitars, most of which I use regularly.
Also around this time, the organist at our church, knowing my interest (not that I kept it much of a secret), got me a volunteer position playing the organ at Laclede Groves, a convalescent home, once a month. A year or so later, I became the full-time organist at an historic Lutheran church on the city's north side. The church at that time was called Pilgrim Lutheran church. It was a beautiful stone building and it sadly burnt down this past year. I still haven't had the heart to drive by. I also began playing at our church when I was 16 and continue to play periodically. I play keyboards weekly at our contemporary service and several times a year for various musicals.
As far as the computer interest - I bought my very own Apple IIe in high school (1983 - no one had computers then!) and I did end up combining that and Electrical Engineering at the University of Missouri - Rolla and eventually became an embedded programmer for the company that I was a co-op student at during college. Now I'm the manager of the group and have programmers all over the world.
The funny thing is, I'm still wondering if I should make music my career!
What were your childhood career plans and how did they turn out?
Hey, good news everyone! Just minutes ago (as I type this, of course you may be reading this later), I completed "Paper Mario : The Thousand Year Door."
I found this label on a CD I purchased yesterday. The album is a live album from Allan Holdsworth who is a fantastic guitarist, but goodness gracious this is a lot to live up to!
