To Astronomy…And Beyond!

Oh, to be an astronomer! That was one of the pat answers that I, when a little kid, would give to those pesky grownups whenever they asked me what I planned to be when I grew up. What I should have said was, “Just like you!” and then observe their reactions. For most people as adults feel, I suspect, as if they have fallen far short of their childhood ideals. A kid will rarely express interest in doing something commonly believed as being ordinary and mundane. One of the great comic lines I ever heard was on an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies when someone asked Jethro what he wanted to become after he graduated from school. Beaming with enthusiasm and excitement, the towering, overage "kid" replied, “A brain surgeon!--Either that, or a soda jerk!”

Most of us fall somewhere in the “middle” of those two choices, finally settling for what we can best get from the employment marketplace. And much of this is just seeing things from a more realistic and mature perspective. But is it such a wise decision to completely abandon the lofty and seemingly unattainable goals of childhood?

I get a kick out of watching various astronomy shows on TV, especially the ones like Nova where they show astronomers publicly undergoing near-orgasmic fits of ecstasy over their discoveries. These folks know how to live! We should, all of us, have goals that may seem at present far out of reach, but which we can work toward accomplishing and which will put us in a better (if not utterly ecstatic) life situation. Like those “wild and crazy” astronomers! (Of course, who knows what kinds of “gloomy Gusses” they are when the cameras aren’t trained on them).