Jaspert still remembered a day long ago when he'd sat at his grandmother's feet, illuminated by the dying embers of the fireplace on a cold winter's night.
"Little son," Grandmother started, her knitting needles clacking, "why do you set your expectations so low?" Jaspert was around eight at the time. Grandmother's affectionate nickname for him was "little son" because of his striking resemblance to his father, her son.
"What do you mean, Gramma?" Jaspert asked, confused.
"I ask you what you want to be, you tell me 'something easy, Gramma.' Why?" Jaspert crinkled his nose in confusion.
"So I don't have to try too hard. If I grow up and do something that's easy to do, then I won't have to work hard or be afraid of failing," he explained patiently. Grandma clucked in disapproval. Her gray, white-streaked hair fell in her face as she bent down to look him in the eyes.
"Don't you set your goals so low that you have to bend down to achieve them," she warned. "Better to set them high, where you always have to look up with your face to the sky and reach."
That day was the day Jaspert decided he was going become an airman when he grew up.