I was so lucky.

By the time I was 12, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do

Well, I got sidetracked. That turned out to be a good thing.

In high school, journalism was my thing. I worked on the hometown paper two summers. I started volunteering stories about high school activities when I was 17, a senior.

I didn't live in a Metroplex. The high school was all we had in many miles in many directions. I was paid $1 an hour. My dad was irritated because the federal minimum wage by then was $1.10. I begged him to leave it alone, and he did. It didn't improve his languishing friendship with the editor.

I was naïve in spades. I was gullible. But somehow, I also was curious, intelligent and a good writer. So the paper kept me, taught me, let me write. Looking back, probably more because of my dad than me. But we did get new readers from what I wrote. Eh.