I think of jobs I was offered and didn’t take. All the turns in the road that I didn’t avail myself of. What if I had? How would my life be different? Or would it?

God in Heavenletters™  tells us not to look back. We can’t change a thing. We all know that. I know that, and yet I still do it.

There are six job possibilities I didn’t take that I will tell you about. I will break this up into two blog entries.

1. When I was a senior in college, a fine representative of a little town in Massaschusetts came to my school to recruit teachers. The name of the little town may have been Taunton, but I’m not sure.  The representative really really wanted me.  He was wonderful. I don’t know about you, but not too many employers have come looking for me and really really wanted me. Had the town been nearby, I would have grabbed it. But it was a little town some distance away, and I didn’t want to move there. I think I just didn’t want to move anywhere at the time. I can still see the disappointment in the man’s eyes.

2. My first year of teaching was at East Longmeadow Junior High. It was a glorious first year of teaching. I would have stayed there without question EXCEPT — I must give you some background first:

I was an English teacher. After high school geometry through which I suffered tremendously, I shuddered at math. In my defense, I had loved 9th grade algebra. I had a wonderful teacher, and I had done well. I didn’t know about advanced placement classes at the time, but that’s where I was for geometry. I was in the same class with Seymour Rudman and Jacqueline Zandan who went on literally to become rocket scientists. Of course the class was too fast for me. I was literally the dumbest one in the class. The good thing about that was that it made me very understanding when I later became a teacher.

Well, the wonderful principal at East Longmeadow Junior High, Mr. Lawton, wanted me to continue teaching there, but I would also have to teach one math class. Now that I am wiser, I might have some understanding of Mr. Lawton’s logistic problem, that he had an extra math class that had to be taught and didn’t have another English class to give me,  but I wouldn’t hear of it. I would not teach math.  I wasn’t indecisive about saying no. It was no,   and that was that. Was I right or wrong? I’ll never know.

I will just add that I call this blog entry Sense of Direction because geometry had a lot to do with sense of direction or lack thereof.  Probably job choices do too.

3. When I had that fabulous job with the foreign students at the college I went to — it was a government program — I was still a student but because it was a government program that paid me, I was the highest paid secretary at the college! Anyway, a visiting dignitary from D.C. came to observe, and he wanted me to apply for a job with him in Washington. I do remember filling out an application, but my heart wasn’t in it.  For salary requirements, I put down something outrageously high, and of course wasn’t accepted.  Whoever read my application probably had a good laugh! The guy was sleazy, I might add. I don’t have any regrets about turning down that job, but still, I wonder what might have been had I moved to D.C.

Tomorrow I will tell you about three more jobs I didn’t take. Actually, one I really really wanted, but they didn’t take me.