Hopefully by the time you read this, you and everyone else that is going to be here in the spring will have registered. As for myself, I know what I want to take for my classes, but it still seems strange to even be registering for them. But there’s no mystery to why I feel this way. The simple truth is I’m old.
There’s a little known secret that I share with only my friends and everyone else who asks: I’m 35.
Honest. I swear. If you cut me in half and counted the rings like a tree, you would see. And perhaps it’s because I’m this age that I get 1) compliments on how youthful I look and 2) surprise when I say that I am still in school. With regard to the first point, people, like snakes and lawyers and ex-girlfriends, are poor liars. And to the second point, bite me.
Hey, I’m a late bloomer. In this insane world that is hopefully just a bad version of the Sims, I took the road less traveled. It was kind of like Bugs Bunny taking that “left turn at Albuquerque.” I suppose I just took longer to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, what my high school guidance counselor called “your career goals.”
Growing up in north Louisiana, I spent many of my preteen years living with my grandparents. I respected and loved them, but I also knew there was no way in hell I would be like them and be a teacher. It’s not that I couldn’t do it or wouldn’t enjoy it. But I saw them teach for so many years in a state that didn’t appreciate their vocation and then left them with little when they retired.
I knew I didn’t want to be a military man either since the government denied my grandfather’s veteran funeral even though he was a WWII vet who had flown in bombing missions in the European theatre.
So I had to find my own path. Which brings me back to Bugs Bunny …
Though I have enjoyed successes at the jobs I had held, none truly fit my personality. From the first job I had at a pizza shop, I excelled and found myself in the unenviable position of being good at restaurant management. (Take note: If you have ADD, OCD and a smart mouth, you too could have a wonderful future in the service industry!)
Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed much of my time in these pursuits and have earned a good living. Some of my best stories (please note that I did not say “fondest memories”) have come from my time in the business. But it never completely satisfied me and, worse, I have come to have a jaded approach to many of the people with who work.
So I took some time a few years ago and reflected on what I was doing with my life. Yep, it hit me like hereditary manic depression in a family in a Tennessee Williams play. It was time to “get on or get left.”
Outside of my grandfather, my heroes have usually been two-dimensional. Be it Peter “with great power comes great responsibility” Parker, Jim “I don’t fight because I’m a professional coward” Rockford or Bugs “ain’t I a stinker?” Bunny, I tended to favor those who would visit me through some pop-culture feeding tube.
Without escapism, where would America and her dysfunctional children be?
I knew I had a streak of right and wrong in me instilled by the Comics Code Authority and television network censors, but I couldn’t decide how to best use this sense of justice. Well since I can’t be Groucho Marx, why not be a journalist?
Hey, it worked for Walter Cronkite, Bob Woodward and Clark Kent; why not me?
I know it seems naive, but it works for me. In this sense, I don’t see myself as left or right, Republican or Democrat. Instead I see myself as constantly being on the fence, throwing tomatoes at those on either side.
And I love tomatoes.
Now I have just a few semesters to go and I love it. True, I don’t always agree with the hoops students have to jump through in their classes, but it’s not that bad compared to working in the real world — with the exception of that nagging Fitness and Recreational Activity hour.
So buck up, kids! One day soon you’ll be done with school and be off to be broke in the real world. As for myself, I’ll be the crusading journalist exposing corruption where I find it – or maybe just a writer for The Daily Show.