High School - Continued

What are your most prominent memories of high school?

In the previous post, I mentioned some of the things I learned during those years. But if you asked me to describe a typical day from my pre-adult life, I'd most likely talk about making movies with my swim team buddies, or dreaming about the girls I liked...but would never have the courage to speak to.

In truth, most days were fairly dull -- Swim practice before school, marching with the band during 1st hour, and then struggling to stay awake during the rest of my classes. Being the shy guy, I didn't contribute much to class discussions...but I do remember occasionally challenging my favorite teachers to explain why they thought it was important that we learned the Pythagorean theorum, or the Bohr model of the atom. Their answers always seemed to be along the lines of Emil Faber's famous axiom, "Knowledge is good." Being a typical idiotic rebellious teenager, I was inclined to argue the point. But as an adult, I totally agree; knowledge IS good.

It's just a pity that my knowledge seems limited to random data about Star Trek, Green Acres, and Weird Al Yankovic. Sigh.

But as long as we're talking about that subject, let's take a moment for another brief TV trivia quiz.

What's the common tie between the characters on each row in the graphic to the right?

Answers tomorrow.

You know, I really don't remember watching that much television during high school. I was probably on the fast track to success and fame up until I fell under the influence of my best friend (and college roommate), Mickey. Once we moved into the dorm and discovered the wonders of UHF programming, I pretty much spent the next four years with my eyes affixed to the CRT. Being a TV/Film major, I could argue that there was some justification for my boob tube addiction...but the truth was that I just really enjoyed watching old movies and silly sitcom reruns.

Not Gilligan's Island, though; that was offensively stupid and inane. Nor did I get too deeply immersed in Brady Bunch milieu; despite my deep affection for Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb, I was too creeped out by Florence Henderson to ever really relax and enjoy the show. I kept hoping that He-Man would suddenly show up and use his magic sword to dispatch her back to the evil realm from whence she came.

And speaking of evil, did everyone recognize the photo at the top of this post? The Omega Man had us all talking like photophobic mutants for a while. Unlike Mathias and crew, though, we didn't actually burn everything that upset us. We mostly just complained about it.

Anyway, here are a few other high school memories that have popped up over the last few days, in no particular order.

• When our band was invited to march in the Cotton Bowl parade, I passed a mere five feet away from an ABC television camera. (Of course, the telecast's director chose to use the shot from the camera that was following the cheerleaders, so none of the band's musicians ever made it to the network feed.) We played the theme from "Hawaii Five-0."


• I think I was sick when all my friends went to the West vs. Ark City football game...so I missed the road trip in which opening all the car windows wasn't enough to save the car's occupants from one of the riders' deadly flatulence. The guilty party shall remain nameless, but his gaseous assaults on all that is decent became legendary that night, and are still feared by anyone who has heard the tales.


• I was expecting a "Longest Yard"-style comedy when I saw Burt Reynolds' name on the marquee for "Deliverance". Whoa. Not what I expected, or wanted to see. To this day, I'm still freaked out by hillbillies, banjos, and Jon Voight.


• I had a rat-tail comb, and tucked the tail up under my belt to discourage pickpockets. (My memory is fuzzy on why comb theft was a constant concern.) The only thing I miss about my long-hair days was having it freeze when we walked out of swim practice on frosty December mornings. There was something cool (or should I say "groovy") about combing the ice off your head as you crossed the parking lot.


• Maintaining a 3.5 GPA earned me an "Honors Pass", which meant I could leave school at any time without permission. I took advantage of this ill-conceived policy, and because Steve Odle agreed to give me his class notes, I rarely showed up for 6th-Hour Psychology Class. (Still got an "A", though. Pretty cool.)


• My off-campus lunches at McDonalds cost $1.03 for 3 hamburgers, fries, and a coke.


• The cafeteria's bizarre graham-encrusted attempt to emulate a chocolate mousse dessert received the nickname "the creeping crud." I blame this culinary abomination for the fact that I threw up on Randy Douglass during the our swim meet trip to Enid, Oklahoma. This was a special bummer, because Enid had the worst team we would face that year, and I was expected to win the 100 freestyle. It was my only chance for an event victory that year...but I spent the entire meet in the locker room barfing.


• I have zero regrets regarding the academic portion of my high school career -- even the minor rebellion that earned me an "F" on my Junior Research Paper. (As I matured, I did finally understand the point Mrs. Griffiths was trying to make; that discipline is a valuable skill to learn. I still maintain, though, that teaching such a lesson by forcing students to perform utterly stupid and wasteful tasks is the wrong approach. The paper I wrote using my labor-saving method was every bit as good as any that were written with her "do it the same way I did it 50 years ago" process. She may have thought she was teaching discipline, but she was actually sending the message that authority's job is to extinguish creativity. I'm glad I now work for a company that encourages innovation, and I hope that I foster such thinking among the people I might influence.
  
  (NOTE: I am NOT saying that it's OK to do a one-hand touch on breaststroke and butterfly.)

After high school? Well, I am happy to say that the college years provided many additional memorable stories that I'd love to share with you. As for what I learned in college...well, there was plenty of insider info about the craft of filmmaking, as well as the standard exposure to B.F. Skinner, Maslow's Hierarchy, and the Milgram Experiments. I also absorbed facts about Stonehenge, Gauss's Theorum, and how to conjugate Spanish in the Subjunctive Mood. And in Calculus class I learned the most important lesson of all -- that just because somebody is paid to stand up in front of a classroom and brandish chalk, it doesn't necessarily mean they know diddly squat about teaching.

Anyway, those sordid tales will have to wait for another time. For the moment, I shall ask you to share the images that dominate YOUR memories of your formative years. Most of my readers probably tend toward Ninja Turtles rather than the incomparable Ms. Fawcett, but I'm sure we each remember the posters that capture the essence of our maturation experience. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Have a great day!