My parents planned for me to go to college.
Do you remember those pins they'd sell at school? "Send a mouse to college".
We children fell for that, of course. We believed that with 5 cents, we'd be sending a mouse to get a degree. I just looked on the www and sheesh, that goes back a long way. Feeling old.
The mice were really being sent to the lab to get tortured, but seeing the mice in caps and gowns made the scheme appealing to us kids who didn't know any better.
Well, I wouldn't wear eyeglasses for starters and my stubbornness was matched by the teachers who all put me in the back of the class, where I was more or less blind.
I could not see the chalk board and made up answers to questions I imagined were on the board. My parent tried to get me to wear them, but even when I had them in my pocket, I'd still tell the teacher I'd left them home or broke them.
Only one out of so many teachers let me sit close to the board so I could learn something.
And I dropped out before turning 16, so much for The American Dream.
My parents did understand. It was them who got me to a psychiatrist who excused my absences and kept me out a full year. So to add it up would be something like a 7th grade education and I've got a job getting grocery carts out of the lot and back into the store.
If I could go back in time, I'd wear those glasses and have gone to college, but life usually holds only one chance for us all.
