This just in

According to this Wikipedia article, Greenville, Mississippi is not only the birth place of yours truly... It's also where Muppet Man Jim Henson took his first breath, too. With that sort of fame (I'm referencing both of us now), you'd think there should be a plaque or something, eh?

Memories-fil-A

On my way to my promotional interview Tuesday night, I decided that I had to pee. Although it was one of those inbetween urges, where you know you have to pee but you're not sure if you have to pee anytime soon... I didn't want to take chances in a room full of people asking me questions. I don't need that kind of pressure.

I have no idea why I'm telling you this except so that I can set up why I dropped in at the firehouse on my way to city hall -- to pee, of course. And I tell you that I dropped in at the firehouse so that I can tell you that I smelled Chick-fil-A when I walked out of the back door there.

For those not scoring at home, you probably don't see the significance of this. I'm not talking about just any Chick-fil-A. I'm talking about the odor that can only stem from the one, the only and the now extinct Chick-fil-A at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Talk about acid flashbacks.

For a brief moment, I was 200 miles and at least four years away. For the two dozen or so steps it took me to walk from the back door to my truck, I could have just as easily been back in Monroe at school. But I wasn't. I was in Maumelle. Four years into a job that I love. Four years. I'm as many years removed from school as I spent there. Wow.

Where will I be and what will I be doing when, one of these days, something triggers the memories of right now? And, more importantly, will I feel as though I'm better off when that happens?

Return to the Dream

I slipped into the budget hair stylist with less than 10 minutes to spare before they locked the doors for their 8 p.m. closing. I can only guess that such behavior makes me one of the customers they hate. Fortunate for me, if the woman with the scissors had such feelings tonight, she didn't take them out on my hair.

As I waited alongside another late-comer for the two filled chairs to empty, I picked up a US News & World Report. I absolutely hate to get involved in an article in a magazine that I don't subscribe to with the knowledge that I might not finish it. I'm not sure where that comes from -- just one of my many quirks. So, I skimmed.

Somewhere along the way, I read part of an article about how baby boomers are redefining retirement. The woman used as an example in the first few paragraphs quit her job in the corporate world to bake cookies for a living. So far, the cookie business hasn't made her rich. However, her perspective was this... The corporate work she was doing wasn't want she wanted to be doing when she died. Baking cookies, it seems, was. You've gotta admire a person for not only approaching life like that, but for actually taking action.

Skimming the article got me thinking.

I consider myself absolutely blessed to have the job I have today. Being a firefighter was once my dream job -- one of those things that I expected to always want to do, but never get the chance. Not only did I get the chance, I've been a firefighter for six years now and paying the bills by doing it for four. Who could possibly ask for more? Well, as it turns out, me.

I've been bogged down lately in a job that I love to do. I never imagined how much politics could be involved in a small suburban fire department. I never imagined that there could be people who do my job that want others to fail or that want to hinder the job and not help it along. I was wrong. And for a stretch of time lately, it seems that I've only been able to focus on the negative. That focus was so strong that I can remember one day where I just didn't want to go to work at my dream job. Talk about a sign that something is wrong.

In lieu of any real or meaningful New Year's resolutions, I've decided to make a few April resolutions. Most important of these is that I must worry about the things I can change and do my best to forget everything else. There are folks that will do their best to jump in my path and I've gotta do a better job of jumping over them instead of trying to kick them out of the way (that method was not working). And, finally, I must remember that the firehouse is only 1/3 of my life. The right thing might not be good enough for others, but if it's truly the right thing -- that's all that matters.

If I can put these resolutions in action, perhaps I'll still be riding a fire engine when others of my generation are quitting their job to bake cookies.