I made it through high school without a clue. I didn’t know why I was there or where I was going. I don’t recall having too many trips to the guidance counselor.
I didn’t have a complex life plan. Go to school, then work. School was not a means, but an end, something I had to endure, and when it was over I’d be free to travel the world doing odd jobs. That was my approach. My world would open up once I put education behind me.
My mother didn’t know much about school having little of it growing up in rural Oklahoma. She had no advice, didn’t check on my homework, but joined the PTA and brought cookies and lemonade to classroom parties sometimes, helping where she could.
I liked school. I just didn’t plan to build on it. I’d do my obligatory 12 years so I could find jobs, then be done. All my friends were in school, so what else was I going to do?
In our rural Pennsylvania town, senior classmates tended to graduate with their kindergarten classmates. We didn’t see many transfer students. When you spend a dozen years in school with the same people, you get to know them pretty well. It makes it easy to find friends, and you enjoy going to the games and dances.
No one ever helped me choose my classes. The handbook listed hard, complicated academic-track classes like physics, chemistry, calculus, next to fun, easy general education classes like fine arts and literature. It was a no-brainer. I chose art, wood shop, metal shop, bookkeeping, general math, science, history and English, every year.
In advanced biology the students dissected cats and sharks and created organ flowcharts. In my basic biology class we dissected worms and had to place the heart and stomach on a stick. It was pretty low-brow, but for me everything was melody and fine. I’d get the same diploma as everyone else.
My grades were mostly Cs and Bs. I did my assignments, not wanting to flunk. I actually read The Oxbow Incident when most in my class did not. I just never felt driven to score As. They’re nice when you can get them. I got As on occasion in English, typing, shop, art, and bookkeeping, but not because I tried. I just liked the classes.
I was short sighted about my future. I knew I wanted my own apartment, stereo, clothes, a car, some spending money, a girlfriend. That should keep me busy for a few years.
For careers, the horizon seemed too broad to settle one just one profession. One career seemed confining. I wanted a dozen careers. College was for kids whose parents went to college and knew at an early age they wanted to be an engineer, a scientist, or a titan of industry.
I wish I could say what turned me around about my education. If I knew, I’d hit the lecture circuit tomorrow telling school officials how to turn on youth to learning. My whole life I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.
At the start of my senior year in high school, I got a strong urge to prove something to myself. I knew I was goofing around in school, not taking my assignments too seriously. Suddenly I wanted to know, was my dalliance a diversion? Was I dodging failure? This would be my last chance to find out. Could I nail all my senior classes if I tried?
I tried, and I did it. No life coach told me to do it. My mother didn’t make me. My teachers didn’t prod me. Something internal made me lock myself in my family’s camper and study every night. I finished high school, seven years of college, and a single life-long career as a teacher. Now, how’d that happen?
This reminds me very little of a story. I had a childhood friend Robbie who could shoot pool like a champ. He could make bank shots, combinations, and trick shots. His billiard English was so acute he could spin the cue to stop anywhere on the table. However, he would get into games with challengers, sometimes with $1 on the line, and he’d goof around, make sloppy shots, miss ducks, and lose.
It would make me furious. “Robbie! Why didn’t you beat that guy? You had him. You’re better than he is.”
He would shrug and say, “I know I could beat him if I really wanted to, so why bother?” It seemed wise to me at the time. I was impressed with his humility. Then he’d lose another game and another. Why would he waste his talents? I believe it was at the start of my senior year that I came to realize that Robbie was dazed and confused.

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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