I
was very conscious of how out-of-place I felt in school anymore. I
never really liked high school much anyway, I never really
fit in with the jocks. You know, those guys who eat, drink and sleep
sports and take it all too seriously. I knew, even then, that beyond
high school, those guys, who had once been big men on campus, would
just become ordinary people as soon as they graduated. I was never
very athletically inclined. I had tried out for the football team
once, played one game and immediately decided it was not for me.
A
lot of the kids in high school were headed either for farming or
college. Those kids had a purpose for staying in school and
graduating.
My
parents were poor, we didn't own a farm, just a house and ten acres
with woods. I knew my parents couldn't afford college and frankly,
the idea of four more years in a learning institution just didn't
hold any appeal for me. Too boring.
I
was much more interested in cars than sports and books in those days.
But in Indiana, sports and farming was everything, especially in
high school so that pretty much left me out of the ‘cool’ loop. I
had great grades in school until I reached high school and decided
what I'd rather be doing in life, which wasn't hitting the books.
Besides,
I thought the guys who liked cars were much cooler anyway. I could
relate to cars. Cars were something tangible, steel and chrome you
could touch and work on. I was able to see and feel the satisfaction
of a job well done when I worked on a car that had stopped running.
Maybe there were no trophies involved, or a sweater with a letter on
it, but there was a feeling of deep accomplishment from fixing and
customizing a beautiful car.
In
the 1960's cars were everything.
Everybody
wanted to be seen in a hot car, even farm boys, jocks and yes, girls
too.
The
part time job I had recently landed as a bag boy at the local
Kroger’s grocery store gave me a small taste of the adult world. In
summer, weekends and holidays off, while those other kids were
hanging out at drive-ins trying to pick up girls, I was helping
little old ladies with groceries to their cars. But even that bit
of responsibility was not enough for a boy in a hurry to grow up, the
small responsibility of that job only made me hungry to experience
more of what the world had to offer.
I
felt like most of the crap they were teaching in school was junk I’d
likely never be using in real life anyway. I fancied myself as older
than my high school peers. Maybe not in years, but in my mindset.
Just about everything they thought was important, I viewed as being useless.
I
already felt that what was important in high school, would matter
very little in the real world.
Growing up, I had jobs as young as age
12. I picked berries one summer to earn money, later on I delivered
newspapers every day after school and on weekends. I was used to
hard work, the kind of physical labor you do with your hands, not
always your head.
I think seeing my parents work so hard all the
time, I grew to appreciate the value of it all and the value of
money. Oh, I was smart enough, but school just couldn't hold my
interest long enough for me to care about it much.
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