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- Dan
- Father, musician, trail runner, reader, geographer, craft beer aficionado, meditator.
On the Bookstand
In the DVD Player
The Roll
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Three Day Weekend14 years ago
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King New Year 201214 years ago
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Perfect Things.17 years ago
Posts
9 comments:
I have a very strong memory of that very quote. At the time (1989)I was impressed of the whole "hey, I'm stumbling into greatness" vibe of it.
I also recall the brown shirt/green shoes combo was an angle during Final Exams. Cue "Sharp Dressed Man" with altered lyrics....
EXACTLY!!! Obscure reference high-five!!!
On a side note - sort of the angle of this post was to dig up the ghost of an old sore point.
There's nothing like being able to take something that's an admirable accomplishment and working hard enough to cause it to be an object of ridicule. In this country, we're real good at doing that with respect to anything that takes brains. What's incredible, is that those with brains let it happen. I guess I had nothing else to make fun of him about, but I remember him getting so mad at me calling him "valedectorian" that he gave me an Escalante-dog-style Smackdown.
aaanyway - for those who weren't part of this collective experience, PMix was in danger of messing up the perfect 4.0 with a B+ in - what - Spanish IV? Anyway, he wore a special outfit (green shirt, brown pants, brown shoes, black belt) to go have a "conversation" with his Spanish teacher right before the grades came out.
It apparently worked.
side note to Mix: print & save if you wish. You won't get another chance. This bit o' fun was brough to you courtesy a stack of old "Spectators" that went into the recycle bin Sunday night.
oof
Long since over the stinging pain of valedictorian ridicule, MAN that picture is gay.
I'm certain I wasn't wearing lip balm or other lip covering, but boy it looks like I was. So bad.
In the continuum of embarassing senior pictures, it's not so bad at all.
Seriously, that should never be a source of ridicule. Why should it be? For all the various forms of high school-level rebellion I dabbled in, academic achievement wasn't one of them.
Privately, I envied those who simply did very well and weren't arrogant. Truly the rarest form of student.
I appreciate that.
Hopefully without sounding immodest, I can say that WHS did not push any of our intellectual envelopes, and the 'success' I had, had little to do with rigorous studying. My brain was hard-wired for book learnin'.
I could go on for a while on what I thought WHS did or didn't do, but suffice to say: I hated it and wanted out. I was unable to focus long-term and see that graduation was inevitable and life would quietly move forward. I look back realizing no one told me when to run; I missed the starting gun.
I was halfway between you two.
My brain was hard-wire for learnin' and, born to a family of educators, I was expected to succeed.
But I hated it and I wanted out.
Look for an upcoming post about young-young Dan and the great mystery as to what happened on the way to young Dan.
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