897 Memories in Boxes

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Daughter has several boxes in my basement. I'd kinda like her to take a look at the stuff, but I've decided now is not the time. I know her well enough to know that if she thought I'd like to clear it out, she'd tell me to throw away everything without even looking at it - her theory being that if she hasn't needed it in the past eight years, she won't need it ever. I think I'll wait a few more years. Need is not the same as want.

That got me thinking about a box I had left in Ex#1's parents' attic when I left him. He didn't want me to retrieve it because he didn't believe I was really leaving, and he didn't want his parents to know anything. He promised he'd send it to me after I found someplace to live. But within a week of my leaving, his father left his mother (a complete surprise). Naturally, she blamed me, everybody blamed me for showing that it could be done, and she threw my box out.

It contained all my old diaries. Letters from friends and first drafts of my letters to them (we were big letter writers in those days). High school and college essays and term papers, of which I was very proud. Art projects from college. Photographs from high school and college. Dried corsages. Mementos. All gone.

Forty years later I still think about that box. This morning I sat down and sifted through the box in my mind.

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When I went to college, in that time and place, the goal was to turn out "well-rounded" citizens. You didn't graduate until you could swim, hit a tennis ball and a golf ball, shoot an arrow, bowl, turn a back somersault, speak before a large audience, paint with oils, sculpt, and recognize the styles of the major classical composers. (Unfortunately, they didn't include guns, which was the one thing I was already very good at.) Those classes were not fluff classes, either. You really didn't graduate without passing them.

Also, back then, the average grade was a "C". At my college, in every class, there were no more than two "A"s (if that many) given in any class, and there were always two "F"s. It didn't matter if your average in a class was 95%. If everyone else's average was above 95%, you failed the course and had to repeat it. If three or more people tied for top scores, then they all got "B"s, since nobody was "the best". It wasn't like a curve. It was possible for everyone in the class (except the bottom two) to get "B"s, if it was an outstanding group. One more thorn - no matter what your average was going into the final exam, if you failed the final (that one was based on %), you failed the course. Period.

I needed to graduate in three years, and I had two majors and a minor, so I was carrying a very heavy load. It's funny, but the classes I remember as the hardest were the "rounding" classes. I wasn't very good in any of them. I think I got through on charm.

My golf instructor said I had a perfect textbook stance and swing - but I couldn't hit the ball for love nor money. I'd haul off with this perfect swing, and everybody would look off into the distance, then back in confusion, and there'd be the ball still sitting on the tee. I don't think I ever hit the danged thing.

Bowling was just the opposite. I got decent scores, but every time I released the ball, I'd fall down. Splat right on my doupa. Terrible form.

I was good enough at archery that the instructor insisted that I try out for the team, but it turned out I couldn't pull the heavier bows used in competition without losing control of the arrow. You know, one of those fly two feet plops.

Swimming was horrible. The instructor took one look at my kick on the first day, and decided that I was lying when I said I didn't know how to swim. Hey, I've got strong legs! He threw me into the deep end and let me drown. I threw up after every class.

In tumbling, I could do everything on the final exam except one thing. To demonstrate flexibility, you had to sit on the floor, lean forward so that your shoulders were between your knees, put your arms out under your knees and around to the front of your calves, and then interlace your fingers down to the base. I couldn't do it. I couldn't even get my fingertips to touch.

The day of the final I took a tape measure to class. The length of my arms from underarm to the base of my fingers was 19.5 inches. My legs are short and powerful. The length of the distance my arms would have to traverse, from mid-thigh, under the knee, around the calves, to the mid-point between my calves, was 23.0 inches. And that's assuming no bones in my arms and with the calves close together. The calves would have to be separated because my shoulders would be between my thighs, so it's even longer. Therefore it is physically and mathematically impossible! for me to do this, no matter how flexible I am.

Never underestimate the stupidity of an instructor. She insisted that I had to do it or I would fail the class. I couldn't fail because on my schedule I couldn't afford to repeat any class, besides which no matter how many times I retook it, I was NEVER, EVER, going to be able to do that one thing.

So I did my best. My knees were behind my shoulders, and as close to my neck as possible - the only way I could get the calves close enough - and I was finally able to interlace the tips of my fingers. The instructor was impressed. She acted like she was doing me a favor passing me even though I "didn't meet requirements".

That night, and for the next two days, I was in the hospital. I had really messed up the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in my upper back. It was so bad that nobody realized that I had also dislocated my left hip. I walked around with that undiagnosed dislocation for the next ten years. There might have been some satisfaction that maybe the instructor might have felt bad, except that I had another problem. The day after the flexibility thing was my speech final.

Everybody in the speech class had to give an x-minute talk before the class on some subject chosen by the instructor. Your time was assigned, and with so many speakers and so little time, if you missed your time slot, you failed. Period. No excuses. No recourse. During my slot, I was lying in a hospital bed zonked on pain killers. My speech was ready (and it was a really good one), I was ready, but I missed my slot. The instructor informed me I had failed the class. I fought that one all the way up the chain, and finally gave the speech at a faculty meeting, and got an "A" on it.

The hardcopy of that speech was in that box. I wish I had it.

What kicked this all off was thinking about the little figurine in the box. We had been handed a lump of clay and told to make something. I fashioned a little girl, with braids and a full skirt, and chubby legs. She was very detailed, very pretty, and quite well done. But the instructor turned his nose up at it, "You made a Hummel!" I got a low grade for her, but I really liked her, and I wish I had her now.

I know now what I should have said to that instructor. My little girl really was well done. She wasn't very original, but the craftmanship was superb. Forty years later I know that I should have said to him, "Yes. A Hummel. I admit I have no talent. But you can't teach talent. You teach craftsmanship. So are you going to grade this project on talent, or craftsmanship? On what I brought to the class or what I'm taking away?"

Colleges today don't try to produce "well rounded" graduates. It's just the facts, ma'am. But throughout my life, it's the "rounding" classes that have stuck with me and influenced me the most. I don't remember much of history, or literature, or languages, or mathematics, but I have an appreciation for the arts that seems to be missing among today's youth. They don't seem to be able to differentiate between something produced by talent and hard work, and something that's only quality is uniqueness.

Which reminds me - when you hear "music", and you find that when it stops your shoulders relax and you think "Thank God it stopped", that's not music. That's noise.