I walked into my local newspaper's front office and asked for a job application after reading Hunter S. Thompson's "The Proud Highway," and they never called. 10 years later I work around the corner from aforementioned paper in a broadcast newsroom.
I want to throw myself out of a window when I read old reporter's memoirs from WWII because they're like "I was a high school dropout in rural Mississippi when I walked into my local newspaper and they asked 'How'd ya like to go to Paris, kid?' And so began my 80-year career."