Leonard Gray / L’Observateur / June 24, 2000

One sometimes wonders about the roads not taken.

My own life has seen its share of turmoil and there have been several instances where if something particular had not happened, my life would now be quite different than it is.

This isn’t about choosing one career over another, although certain events affected me that way as well. It’s more about specific events whichmolded and shaped my life to what it is now.

From time to time, I’ve wondered about what I would be doing now if I hadn’t gone into journalism. Many of the adult males in my extended familyare truck drivers, and I’ve never had the slightest interest in doing that work. I’ve done a lot of jobs, but never that one. And it has been offered.Working my way through college exposed me to a huge variety of work opportunities. This included digging ditches for Brown & Root Constructionat the Monsanto plant in Luling, several instances of security guard work in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and in the River Parishes, short-order cook at a restaurant near LSU and working in the LSU library.

Other jobs held since college only reaffirms my choice of career. Ihonestly can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing which would be as satisfying or make me as happy with my life.

Getting back to those life-changing events, if my mother and father had not divorced when I was 6 years old, and stayed together, I likely would have grown up in Mobile, Ala. and likely would never have met my wife orgone into journalism.

It was when my wife-to-be spoke up on the steps of the LSU student union about the lateness of the bus taking us to New Orleans for Easter break that I took the opportunity to speak with her.

We rode the bus together and have hardly been apart since through 20 years of marriage.

But what if she had stayed silent? Very likely, I wouldn’t have struck up a conversation and we would have passed without comment and never seen each other again. I might be living in Baton Rouge, or Washington D.C. orLondon or who knows where, married or single or divorced or whatever.

Marrying her, we lived in an apartment complex near Bon Marche Mall.

When I lost my wedding ring in the pool, the wife of an old friend happened to find it. That brought together the four of us, which led to us movingback to the New Orleans area to start up an experiment in freedom of the press in Plaquemine Parish during the waning days of the Perez dynasty.

If I hadn’t turned down a job at the Houma Courier as a copy editor in 1984 to keep the job I had just accepted and, 10 years later, struck up a conversation at a convention with the former editor of L’Observateur, I might not be here today.

Where I may be, what I may be doing, who I may be with – these are impossible questions to answer. However, one thing I do feel stronglyabout is that it wouldn’t have been better.

That’s a no-brainer.

LEONARD GRAY is a reporter for L’Observateur.

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