There
was a time when the boy was in real danger of actually matriculating through an
actual Institution of Higher Learning. He
was at the end of what have become known as his Teenage Years.
Technically,
the Teenage Years begin at midnight on a boy’s thirteenth birthday and last
until the same moment just before his twentieth. For some, this period of time begins well before and lasts
well after these years. Regardless,
for observing, watchful, and sometimes scared-to-death parents and other adults
concerned about how and indeed if a teenager is going to grow up, it is always a
long, long time. Equal, I think, to
the construction time for your average Pyramid of Khufu.
The boy was a teenager for several years before and after America’s
Bicentennial. Now, of course, he is
much older and much more mature, since he is approaching his own bicentennial.
At least that’s what everybody tells him.
Sometime
near the end of his technical Teenage Years, the boy found himself belonging to
a college fraternity. I don’t
think that he is active anymore, because the alumni association has not sent him
any informational material for many years.
Apparently he has moved enough times that he no longer worries about
getting informational material, also known as Scholarship, Building, and Aid to
the Beer-Deprived Fund Drive Packets.
But
when he was active, he was, well, active. This
meant that he would cheer the fraternity volleyball team until victory was at
hand, pump quarters into the fraternity pinball machine until bells rang in his
head, wash dishes in the fraternity kitchen until they were almost clean enough
to eat off of, and drink beer with the fraternity brothers until they relieved
themselves in the Flint River with such volume that the Federal government first
recognized the need for an Environmental Protection Agency.
The
gentler side of all this fraternity stuff is that they were responsible for the
care and maintenance of the fraternity house.
Imagine that! Fifty
eighteen- to twenty-two-year-old young men, plus Richard, the
twenty-nine-year-old sixteenth-semester senior, charged with the upkeep of an
overgrown ranch-style institution with lots of washable surfaces and the
occasional hint of green shag carpeting to show off their level of taste.
This
was amazing, since most of them didn’t know the difference between a paint
brush and a vacuum cleaner. Those
who did had no idea how to use either one.
Three
times a week, “the house”, and it was called (technically, it was known as
“the cage”), would undergo a fairly thorough cleaning. “Fairly thorough” meant such things as vacuuming the
carpeting, sweeping the linoleum, and removing engine blocks from the shower.
Sunday
nights were the dreaded Sophomore Clean-Up Nights. The second-year students, of which the boy was one, would
have to return from their weekend ventures early enough to accomplish the
assigned chores.
Somehow
the boy always got assigned to the living room, which was not all that bad.
While the fraternity house living room was not a whole lot bigger than
your typical suburban living room, it never really got trashed, because there
were strict house rules about such things as beverages, foodstuffs, and wild,
unbridled studying there. Besides,
he was a skinny kid, as opposed to the skinny old codger that he is now.
Working in the living room, he didn’t have to move any engine blocks.
One
of the perks that came with living room duty was the stereo. It was a bizarre piece of equipment, but it was one of the
coolest things about the house.
The
stereo was a long, low cabinet, and it looked like one of those self-contained
entertainment centers that they used to sell in the 1960’s that had a TV in
the middle, a turntable on one end, and a radio receiver on the other, all
enclosed by genuine wood veneer, and black fabric laced with gold thread, behind
which were speakers, which were so big that their magnets could affect the
trajectory of Sputnik.
But
the house stereo was different.
Oh,
it had the speakers, all right, but it had a hinged opening in the top in the
middle, under which were an on-off switch, a volume control, bass and treble
controls, and a rotary telephone dial. For
real.
The
phone dial was there for the purpose of selecting an album to play.
The stereo was loaded with a large selection of albums (they looked kind
of like CD’s, only bigger, and made of black vinyl plastic).
The user would choose an album from a plastic-laminated list and dial a
three-digit combination, which represented one side of a particular album.
After some whirring and clicking and whacking of relays and other
electromechanical devices, the album would play, greasy human hands never having
touched it.
On
the Sunday nights the boy was assigned to clean the living room, he used to
listen to an album by Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Some Other Guy We Got To
Play Tuba. One of their big hits in
the 1970’s was “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”.
It appeared, among other places, on a live album called “Four Way
Street”. (I made up the part
about the tuba player.)
He
still gets a warm feeling each time he hears the opening acoustic guitar chords
to this song. The big stereo did
justice to some live work that sounded good even on a cheap stereo (like the one
the boy owned).
“It's getting to the point
Where I'm no fun any more
I am sorry
Sometimes it hurts
So badly I must cry out loud
I am lonely…”
The teenage boy was in the spacious living room, at around 9 PM on a
Sunday night. The weekend was just
about over. He had spent it
partying a little and studying a lot and calling the folks and calling his
girlfriend, trying to make a doomed relationship work long-distance.
He was preparing himself for another week of trying to make an
engineering career materialize with little interest and even less ability.
The rest of the house was buzzing with other chore duty.
The boy was left to play the stereo as loud as he pleased, while he wiped
out ashtrays, vacuumed the green shag carpeting, and polished the baby grand.
“Will it always be like this?” he asked himself.
“Why is life such a struggle? Why
does everything seem so contrary to what I want to do?
Why do I not feel right about being here?
Why does it seem like my brain is full to capacity? Why does it seem that everyone else is so much more prepared
than I am? Who directed me to this
institution and why did I listen to this person?”
Over and over he asks himself these things until he is about to snap.
“Remember what we've said, and done
And felt about each other
Yet wait, have mercy
Don't let the past remind us
Of what we are not now
I am not dreaming…”
The words are very familiar to the boy.
They take him back to the last summer, when they would spend the day at
the park picnicking on tuna salad, which was a foreign food to him at the time.
They made plans. He would be
an engineer and she would be a schoolteacher.
They would make a good living and have a nice house and a wonderful
family and they would live well and have nice things.
She was brilliant. She was
her high school valedictorian. She
would excel at everything she did. The
boy was awestruck by, okay, he admits it, envious of the girl’s brilliance.
The boy did not question the girl’s commitment to him.
Instead, he went on, giving his education all the effort he had.
But the effort was waning with every failed test, with every lackluster
lab report, with every class session wasted in daydreams and doodling.
The questions persisted.
And intensified.
“Tearing yourself
Away from me now, you are free
And I am crying
This does not mean
I don't love you, I do, that's forever
Yes, and for always…”
The
last final exam that sophomore year was on a Thursday. He knew that the week’s battery of exams put his career at
this institution in jeopardy. Would
they let him come back and continue? He
loaded up his Grabber Green Ford Pinto feeling guilty yet somehow relieved that,
at this juncture, the situation was out of his hands.
A fortnight went by and, sure enough, his grades arrived and, shortly
thereafter, the letter. We will
allow you to continue, it said, but be advised that you are now on Double
Academic Probation. You MUST
succeed, even excel, next semester, or else your career here will be terminated.
Damn. It’s not out of my
hands after all, he thought. I have
to make a decision.
He did not sleep for a week.
“Can I tell it like it is
Listen to me baby
It's my heart that's suffering
It's dyin' and that's what I have to lose…”
“I’m quitting,” he said.
“You’re what?” she asked.
“Quitting. Leaving school. I
can’t do this. I have a job.”
Click.
He
did not expect this reaction.
A moment ago, he had been a young person facing reality.
Now he was a loser.
When most people quit school, they are forced to accept work
that pays the bills, but little else. The
boy was smart enough … no, that isn’t right.
The boy had the good sense … no, that‘s not true, either.
Okay, he was in the right place at the right time to find work that he
enjoyed. And it paid well enough that he was able to move away from
home.
“I've got an answer
I'm going to fly away
What have I got to lose?
Will you come see me
Thursdays and Saturdays
What have you got to lose?”
Had the boy stayed in school, he may have flunked out.
Had the boy stayed in school, the girl in his life may have
stuck around.
Had the boy stayed in school, he may have been extremely
average at his work.
Had the boy stayed in school, he may have flirted with the
idea of suicide.
“Lacy lilting lyric
Losing love lamenting
Change my life, make it right
Be my lady!”
Had the boy stayed in school, he would not have realized that
he had made a mistake, until it was too late. In which case he would have learned that it is easy to change
careers. Changing the person he
comes home to, however, is another matter.
My day job has been enjoyable because it has shown me a few
bright moments, and because I have worked with innumerable fine people.
The pay is fair, but the tedium makes me wonder if extreme patience is
really the basis for my compensation. Regardless,
I would hardly call it a stellar career.
Coming home to the right person these twenty-four years has
kept me going.
Her name is Judy. And her eyes are green.