My Life as a Sociologist and an Interactionist

My intellectual journey as a sociologist and a symbolic interactionist began when I was a 13-year-old eighth-grader in Catholic School on the working-class, southwest side of Chicago. My eighth-grade nun pulled me aside after school one day and gently told me that, now that I should think about what to be when I grow up. She suggested I study to be “either a sociologist or a priest.” After some serious thought, I eliminated the option of becoming a priest – yet, the word sociologist was intriguing. I had no idea what it really meant, but it had a certain ring to it in 1960, when society was becoming a viable and visible orientation in terms of major events we were learning a little bit about from the good nuns and television – like civil rights, the cold war, and the space race. I took her advice and set out on a 50-year journey to become a sociologist. The map of the journey has been elusive, though, in that what it means to be a sociologist – especially an interactionist sociologist – has changed over the years as events in my life and the social world have evolved. This journey has had three segments: sociology as something to do; sociology as something to know; and sociology as something to be. The journey has been profound as well as fun because, as I continue to discover what it means to be an interactionist sociologist, I discover who I am.