I don't remember what I wrote down, but I have a hunch that I had no clue about the daily nature of the actual job. This would have been true for me regarding any job except possibly fifth-grade teacher. It leaves me wondering exactly how I might have explained my decision to list a particular job. Let's suppose I'd written down some kind of trade, like being a plumber. What would have been my logic for saying plumber? I guess it would mean I had some interest in plumbing - perhaps I had seen the inside of a toilet tank, or spent some time poking around under the kitchen sink (though of course we were always warned against it because apparently back then that's where everyone stored their poison). It could be that I would have said I liked water, which actually fits with my love of swimming at the time. But whatever I would have said, it would have had nothing to do with being a plumber.
I haven't learned much about the job in the two decades since the publication of that mythical yearbook. Here is what I know, based on those exceedingly rare mornings when I wake up early enough to have a stroll around the neighborhood - the plumber's job must start at four in the morning, rolling out of bed before dawn to find the car keys and make the drive to Beacon Hill, where an indefinite amount of time will be spent driving in circles until a parking space large enough for a contractor's van will appear out of nowhere - wait, is that a fire hydrant? No, but street cleaning starts in twenty minutes. Keeping in mind that the job itself hasn't actually started, I ask - does that sound like a fun job to you? The locals complain endlessly about parking, the impossibility of parking, the hassle of parking, the miracle of finding a space, and so on. One neighbor breathlessly reported that there are four thousand permits issued for two thousand spaces, which is a good example of agreeing more so with the formula than the numbers, but still - the point is that you can't park here unless you are already parked, and from the sound of it nobody has parked here in years.
The contractors in those vans, not just the plumbers but the electricians, the roofers, the cabinet makers and floor finishers, all of the drivers in the vans surely know this, but they still circle the hill each morning with a tireless determination. I wonder if any of them is fulfilling a lifelong dream, or at least one as old as the fifth grade. Did they know as they scribbled in their answer, wedged in alongside "green" and "pizza", that if they liked pipes and water and solving problems and just generally being helpful, that their dreams would be cut short by the sharp ring of the four o'clock alarm? I always remember "what do you want to be when you grow up?" being a particularly hard question to answer, which is a bit odd because back then I generally liked answering questions, those about math or history or even science, unless of course I had more urgent matters requiring my attention such as gym or recess or a field trip. I suspect now that I merely struggled with the question because I couldn't articulate the problem I had with it - I was being asked about the future as if I had a choice in the matter, but if it were up to me I'd have never grown up at all.
