House of Eratosthenes

He was ninety. She was ninety. They both spent their entire lives in Bellingham, Washington. I don’t know if they met each other, but they both cashed it in last year, 2011. She on February 3rd, he on November 7th. By which time, neither of them had a thing to do with me for some thirty years or more. Neither one of them remembered me. That much, I can pretty much promise.

They are the two lowest points of my K-through-12 educational career. They failed me, but not before I failed them. She was my home-room teacher in sixth grade, and he was my “guidance counselor” or some such, in high school. With noticeably mixed feelings, Dad e-mailed me his obituary. Dad doesn’t like to speak ill of the dead any more than I do.

Truthfully, I don’t know why we have career counselors in high schools. The kids who can really make something of themselves, all have the same thoughts about it: Oh alright, I’m to take career advice from some guy who’s a career counselor in a high school. Eyeball-roll. This one thought I should scrub toilets on an Air Force base somewhere. Oh, okay…thankfully, nobody took that any more seriously than I did. All these years later I have to wonder: What purpose was served by this? I still don’t know.

As for her, I remember her mocking condescension like it was this morning: “Morgan, I’m going to pair you up with Michelle, who I hope has more common sense than you do!” The “hope” syllable could’ve shattered a wine goblet, if it were within earshot. Sixth graders shouldn’t say things like “Lady, you’re a fucking bitch,” but I certainly thought it. And, once a sixth-grader thinks such a thing, thirty-five years later one should expect them to recall such thoughts with some regret. But I have none. I know, it was the seventies and all…very trendy to see lots of potential in the lasses and none at all in the lads…but can you say “out of line”? I don’t recall what I did to disappoint Mrs. R so much. But I knew at age eleven this was uncalled-for, and I still know it.

There is an ugly truth here, one not too often acknowledged. I’ve had other teachers who saw much more potential in me. I should write about them, as well. They certainly deserve it. But, for now, it is an observation worth making:

These two, who were so convinced I’d be good for nothing better than cleaning commodes, inspired me as much as, perhaps more than, their opposites. My twenty-five thousand square foot mansion with its seven buildings and its Batmobile-turntable with the Bugatti Veyron spinning around on it…these things have yet to materialize. But I’m not scrubbing the toilets either. Reality is as distant from one of these visions as it is from the other; so who is to say I am not to attain the other? Vroom vroom.

And I think that’s the take-away. We humans have this tendency to sketch lines in the dirt, for each other; to make these paths, and expect the others not to stray outside of them. But real life is more of a vast expanse of ocean, than a narrow pathway. We should not be hesitating to stray outside of such boundaries, indeed, we should celebrate when we do so. Even if we blunder our way through them by pure accident.

Veyron My son came to visit on Spring Break. I’ve been receiving his school reports, and they reminded me of my dysfunctional relationship with Mrs. R. So, in that one week, we had a few conversations about getting into the matronly-females’ “R-Loop.” That means, the loop in which some overly-opinionated female, overly-enamored of her own perceived authority profile, speaks to a younger male round of head and blonde of hair, who might be a trifle difficult to understand — for no purpose but to command him out of the way. Day by day, month by month, she has nothing else to say to him: Stand over here, stay out of the way, let Michelle take care of it. That’s the R-loop. Some marriages are like that. Poor, dumb, pitiful bastards.

Turns out, our conversations about the “R”-loop resonated. I didn’t know it at the time, but after he went back home I was awash in e-mails from his Mother, and his teachers, that things were going much, much better. They didn’t understand it, but he was staying out of their R-loops. They didn’t understand…but I did…and he did. My boy, age fourteen, learned things I had not yet learned at age twenty-five. And he made good use of it. If you want to be capable, you need to communicate to people that this is your vision. They won’t figure it out on their own. And if they don’t figure it out at all, you need to keep that separate from your own vision for yourself. Keep your life on that wide-open sea, and off that narrow road fenced in and paved by others, who don’t understand you and don’t claim to understand you. Stick to your own potential, at its zenith.

No, I don’t have the Bugatti Veyron yet. I may never have it.

But I’m not scrubbing toilets either.

That’s my potential: I’m not likely to end up scrubbing the toilets, I might as well try for the Veyron.

That is the potential we all have.

…scrub toilets on an Air Force base somewhere.

Ahem. Some of us… well, one of us… began exactly in that manner. We didn’t stay there long, but we BEGAN there. No Veyron here either, but I’ve had my Beemers and Vettes.

Good On Yer Boy for taking the guidance to heart. And good guidance it is, too.
- bpenni | 05/17/2012 @ 06:59
Yeah and let’s be very clear about this…Mr. F was not recommending this as a temporary vocation for me, or as a “coming of age” occupation it is for so many others. There was no question about his meaning at all. This was to be the absolute pinnacle of my earthly existence.
- mkfreeberg | 05/17/2012 @ 07:43
“Living well is the best revenge”.

And somebody’s Bugatti Veyron may be somebody else’s Ford Ranger. And a Batcave may be a 1200 sq. ft. house in WNY…

Yeah, I’m pretty sure my high school guidance counselor and teachers, etc. would be SHOCKED to learn I didn’t end up in prison or worse. I’m not joking. A well earned reputation.

Screw ‘em all, I’ve learned 10 times more since then. And one thing is that high school guidance counselors don’t know jack squat, that’s why their high school guidance counselors.
- tim | 05/17/2012 @ 09:52
…Mr. F was not recommending this as a temporary vocation for me…

I should be clear, too. The AF was a career for me (as an enlisted pig), not a temporary vocation. Who cleaned toilets, sometimes even as a senior NCO, if said toilet NEEDED cleaning. I learned a lot in the AF, Morgan… things that served me very well in my civilian career. I get your larger point… always did.
- bpenni | 05/18/2012 @ 12:29

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Memo For File CLVIIWednesday, May 16th, 2012

Memo For File CLVII
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012