The "The Rule Of Age 10!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Googling "Rules of life" to see what may appear on my desktop.  Some rather interesting, but perhaps strange, topics appeared on the page after page of results.  Topics such as: The Age 55 Rule, The 10 Rules of Change, 10 Rules for Writing Numbers and Numerals, Ten Basic Rules of Netiquette or Internet Etiquette, The Rule of #1,  The Giver "Rules" Flashcards, The New Rules of War, 10 Rules Of The Playground, The Rule of 72 and one that I found most intriguing...The Rule of Age 10.  Naturally had to click on the last rule I have listed and came to a page that featured a story that was posted in Reader's Digest's The Genius Section.  "The Rule of Age 10" has a subtitle of Want to find the key to happiness?  Think about what excited you most when you were in fifth grade-and do it now.  My first line of attack was to call my good friend Jere whom I have known since 1st grade and ask who we had as a fifth-grade teacher.  Seems it was Mrs. Ryder, the mom of one of our classmates.  

The 1st grade class at M.J. Brecht Elementary School in 1950.
Jere is front row right and I am top row left.  Marilyn in in white
dress, front row center. Click on image to enalarge.

I tried and tried to think of what interested me in 5th grade and I couldn't think of a darn thing, except the neighbor girl named Marilyn.  So, I then tried to think of what I may have done during summer vacations on either side of 5th grade and then..Bingo, it hit me!  It was the Christmas before I entered 5th grade that my Aunt Doris bought me an Army Pup tent as a gift.  The following summer I set it up in the back yard, used my small printing outfit I had received for my birthday that September and I was in the printing business.  Lancaster Press sat next to our backyard and the workers would throw their used slugs (metal lines of type cast on a Linotype machine) in a bucket by the back door.  It was very convenient to my yard and I would "borrow" a few of them, ink them with my large ink pad and press them on the sheets of paper I had taken from my dad's desk.  Presto...I was printing!  Little did I know how much that influenced me, since I later went to Millersville State Teacher's College where I became a teacher in the Graphic Arts, or printing.  Little did I realize that my entire life was influenced by that summer when I was about 10 years old.  Called my friend Jere once again and asked him what he did that summer, besides get into trouble with me.  

Jere and I standing in front of our old elementary school
a few years ago.  Our 1st grade classroom was bottom right.

He recalled heading to the Railway Express Station near our homes every day to be with his father who worked there.  His mom worked elsewhere so Jere had to go with his dad to the train station for the day.  No big deal, since he loved the train station.  At times I would join him to watch the trains or grab a coke from the cooler at the Railway Express office.  Jere eventually went to Millersville and began his teaching career with me at the same school we graduated from a few years earlier.  But, he worked part-time at the Historic Strasburg Railroad as a fireman on one of their historic steam engines.  

Friends for 70 years, Jere and Larry

Jere also constructed one of the neatest HO railroad systems you'll ever see.  All because he was influenced by the railroad when he was about 10 years old.  Wow!  Seems that the writer of the story in The Reader's Digest, called "The Rule of Age 10", researched many others and sure enough it was the "Ah, Ha" moments at the age of 10 that influenced hundreds of people's future employment, be it a full time job such as mine or a part-time occupation such as Jere's.  The author of the story, Bruce Grierson, wrote that the trend was so striking that after he had finished his writing, he started telling everyone who was floundering in midlife, "Try to remember what you were all about when you were 10. If you kept a diary, dig it out.  If you're still in contact with friends from that era, call them up.  Ask them who you were.  It is 10 years of age when you graduate from being just anyone to visualizing what you may enjoy to do with your life.  You may not realize that, but it seems to be true.  You will experience the biggest surge of intellectual horsepower in your lifetime.  So, as a parent of a child about 10 years old, make sure you turn on the high beams in your child's life and reveal the road ahead.  It may really be what they will become in the future.  That is if you believe what you just read.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.