Wish You Could Go Back and Do School All Over Again?

I have no interest is re-learning the dogma of the Military-Industrial-Complex or it's other BS.

 

If I can go back, knowing what I know now, I'd probably just have more fun and take things less seriously. Go out and read more in the park, play basketball with my buddies and out go skateboarding in the skatepark and try something new. I'd probably get a job during the summer to learn how to work earlier, probably a grocery store or at Sonics as a waiter or something.

 

I'd love it!

appointed to USMA @ West Point in '69 (resigned), I made a bunch of - in retrospect - dumbass testosterone-driven choices. I was hired by LA Co FD (hotshot crew). Then, needing 'more excitement' (??) and wanting to see Vietnam while I still could, I enlisted in US Army & was an RTO in 101st Airborne Division.

Well, it hadn't occurred to me in my eagerness to see the war that - once seen - it cannot be unseen.. My return Stateside with undiagnosed PTSD coincided with the explosion of THE PILL... How nice...

This most definitely put a "DETOUR" sign on my intended pathway to go back to college. I dove headfirst into a hedonistic lifestyle. I don't know that I'd have ever left that lifestyle alive had I not met my wife of 49 years in '75.

Anyway: back to school I worked in construction in Pacific Palisades/Brentwood, made furniture and painted murals in LA/SF Valley. I went to night school in Santa Monica, intending on an art career. But houses costing $35K-$40K near Venice in '72 were selling for $350K in '79.. Too many people and cost of housing saw us leave my hometown and move to Redding, CA.

We bought a 3/2 1,400 sf NEW home on 1/3 acre in-town for $52K.. I got a full-time job and went night school at local SHASTA Jr. College. My intention was to transfer to CSU-Chico as and major in Art. My accounting instructor wished me luck with the words "I've met a lot of starving artists but never saw a starving accountant!"... whoa..

So I changed direction and graduated with a BS BA (Accounting).. I was offered a full scholarship by Business College AND English Depts. I declined both. I LOVED school, but I was almost 40 with a wife and two young children. I had my chances to pursue my education when in my 20s.. Now it was time to be a husband, dad, householder..

I look back on those days a lot.. It was a lot of fun. Competition and cooperation. Knowing when to keep my mouth shut when my real life experiences conflicted with theoretical ideas of working within organizations.. Endless hours exploring the library, map rooms, discussing topics with groups of professors.

Now that we've lived up in the mountain town of Mount Shasta City for 34 years, we're able to enjoy watching our three granddaughters grow. Both of our kids returned here after college, have great careers, bought homes before Covid and we all live within 10 minutes of each other..

Still.. I look back and long for those days in college.. I think it was the excitement of re-tooling for an as-yet-to-unfold future. It was the time where my analog past gave way to the digital world.

But.. I learned long ago that NOTHING can be changed without changing EVERYTHING.

And family is more important than roads not taken..