Has anyone had a pivotal event that changed the direction of their life?

My life has been a trail of forks, dead ends, peaks and valleys. Recently, a PBS Nova documentary suddenly made me realize where everything started. The video was about the history of the SST.
At one time my dad lost his job with an Aerospace firm located outside of Dallas. He then announced he had found another job for Boeing in Seattle with the SST project. We all looked at a map and thought we were headed near Alaska and would freeze to death. Fortunately, we were pleasantly surprised. After 1 year the program was abandoned and the family eventually moved back to Texas. I had graduated from HS, enrolled in college, found a good paying job with Boeing and moved into an apartment. However, at that time, Viet Nam was at its height and Seattle was very aggressive in the draft and, despite things that should have kept me out, I was in. And so started the bumpy road of my life thanks to the SST program.
BTW, most of the rest of the family moved back to Dallas and had the normal, school, career, wife/family/house life and stayed where they were.