The High-Schooler is Father to the Man

I posted about high school memories earlier, and since I'm reading and just watched "Election" I've been thinking about my own high school experience a lot lately-- something I don't normally spend much time doing, believe it or not.

The Wife asked me what I was like in high school and I told her a few of my anecdotes and gave her a thumbnail sketch. She laughed and said, "I probably could have figured all that out."

It occured to me that the block of cement that is my personality probably finished drying sometime around 1992. Anything I've done with my life should come as no surprise to anyone astute enough who knew me back then. Some things never change:

1. I was definitely a smartass. Not in a class clown kind of way, but in more of a quiet, sardonic way.

2. I was not a hard-worker but would do well in classes where I either found the subject matter interesting or I liked the teacher.

3. Nothing came easy, except getting Bs.

4. I was horrible at math and science classes and didn't even bother to take any math after trig. I got a D in Chemistry.

5. I somehow ended up taking a "class" where I worked in the office for 1st period, junior year. It was an easy "A" and an easy 3 credits. My duties included getting coffee for a couple of the secretaries. This caused a minor controversy because I had to go into the teacher's lounge to get the coffee and one time Coach Porter saw me in there and got very upset that there was a student in the teacher's lounge. He complained to the principal and after that I was no longer allowed to get coffee for the secretaries. Completely true story.

6. In Journalism I made minor contributions here and there by writing humor pieces and music reviews for albums I never even listened to. If you added up all the time I spent working on them over the course of my whole senior year, it would probably come out to well over 15 minutes. The journalism teacher was also the head of the show choir and basically could have cared less about the school newspaper and devoted all his time and energy to the show choir. One day after class he asked me if I knew how to operate a video camera. I was worried that my life was suddenly going to turn into an episode of "Diff'rent Strokes", when he asked if I would be willing to videotape the show choir's performance that night. I said 'sure' and ended up taping all their shows that year. As a result, I got an "A" in journalism and the teacher offered to write me a letter of recommendation for college. Being nice and reliable enough to perform a not-very-demanding task proved to be what earned me the greatest amount of respect and appreciation from an adult during my entire high school career.

7. I was horrible at P.E. I was the kind of kid who never dressed and spent time hanging out on the bleachers when I should have been out there Greco-Roman wrestling out on the football field. Despite this I joined the track team and made varisty my sophomore year. Despite this I spent most of my time on the track team trying to impress the girl high jumpers by jumping up and hanging on to the football goal posts.

8. The only classes I excelled at were Typing and German. I have no idea why I was good at either one because I have poor hand-eye coordination (suck at video games) and I was horrible at Spanish.

9. I was also horrible at Accounting.

10. I felt school was just a chore, something I needed to do. If I was really interested in something it was automatically relegated to place that existed well outside of and apart from the world of school.

11. After he graduates from law school, Bryan's first case is going to be to bring suit against the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite", for likeness rights on my account.