A most revealing exercise for each of us is looking back (for some of us way back!) and identifying a significant early event, bearing on whatever occurred through the rest of one’s life’s journey. The importance of what happened long ago is often only seen in retrospect.

Looking back over many years of my personal history, two closely related threads of life’s net were woven in my teenage years. Finishing five years at Runnymede Collegiate I faced a typical dilemma. “Where do we go from here?” Being at a complete loss I decided to repeat certain grade 13 subjects, first to upgrade my marks and secondly to allow time for part time employment. I needed the work to earn tuition for first year university a year hence.

Administrators in the school had other plans. They altered the schedule of classes I had proposed, giving me several scattered spares and ending up with P.T. classes at three o’clock each day. Obviously part time employment was out of the question.

The guidance teacher had had an earlier interview with me as to my future plans. I thought forestry might be an interesting career. Later he recounted in class how important it was to get counseling. He noted one case where a student had been interested in going into forestry. I recognized his comments conc erned his session with me. As the student had had an early medical history of rheumatic fever he obviously shouldn’t even consider such a career path.

These two events greased the wheels. My plans for the school year had been frustrated and my interest in forestry had been derided. My response was to go down to the University of Toronto the same day as my proposal was rejected and sign up for classes in the Faculty of Forestry. (Stubbornness is a family trait!) I should be thankful that such negativity started me off on a forestry career. All significant events in my life have stemmed from this ‘chance’ situation.

Some of my closest friends over the past 50-60 years have been classmates who I never would have known had I waited a year before making such a move. There was an opening in the Reforestation Branch of the old Department of Lands and Forests in the year I graduated.

There was the start of a major government policy move to transfer foresters in that department to northern Ontario including my move to Geraldton. There my closest chum turned out to be the district biologist who convinced me to go with him on a ‘busman’s holiday’ to Europe where I met the love of my life in London. This plus five children later started a completely new phase in my life.

My interest in forestry overseas was noted in head office where a colleague was a head hunter for the then External Aid office within the federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Four years for the family in Kenya followed, and based on this some years later another year and a half in Thailand. Eventually my career turned from a support role in industrial forestry toward greater social and environmental work in Costa Rica, Guyana, Surinam, Philippines and China as well as in northern Ontario to add to earlier experiences in Kenya and Thailand. Life is equivalent to progression of dominos where the movement of one sets off a chain reaction. The biggest difference is that the domino effect tends to be linear whereas life is multi-directional. Each domino tends to start another succession of events, usually in many other directions. In our case this was not only true for Anne and I but for five additional lines of developing situations, let alone several others of our extended family.

Who knows where events at an early stage in life may lead to? I am reminded of an old expression, “For the sake of a nail a war was lost.” As one looks around at one’s associates one can only wonder “What brought each one to where he/she is at?” This is one of the mysteries facing each of us when looking at others, a mystery which makes life so abundantly interesting.