By middle school, most of us can happily recite what we want to be when we grow up. The children who exclaim "Movie star!" or "Astronaut!" are smiled at warmly but rarely encouraged to pursue such audacious career paths. This is how many of us join the rat race; we see the look of gentle amusement on our teacher's face when we tell how we plan to travel between the stars, and later we instead choose to step onto the safe worn path. Kirk Cooper walked the safe path once. He put in the time and toiled in the
