Ambitions of flight

Some of you know that we euthanised our dog Sally a few months ago but I don't think many would know that she wasn't the first dog I had called Sally. I must have been 8 or so when my parents brought Sally home. At that time my only ambition in life was to be a pilot an RAF pilot of anything that flew. But I remember clearly that the day I decided I was unlikely ever to pilot a plane, so I would become a vet. What surprises me most about that memory is the implication of me deciding I could never be a pilot. How on Earth could I become so discouraged from a dream that is as strong in me now as it was back then. Even now pictures of aircraft decorate my office and my workshop. I am such an aviation nut I have cutaway pictures of aircraft engines on the wall too! For all their faults I doubt my parents would have planted this poisonous seed, - yet I can't think of who else could have. We had only had Sally a few months before she contracted distemper. She was too young to be inoculated, and was put down immediately upon diagnosis. There was nothing more could be done. At that moment I rejected the vet career option though I don't recall what replaced it. Today I never see a cloud in the daytime without thinking about flying around it in a little fighter aircraft.