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At the start of my Senior year of High School, I was already shaken
by the surprise disowning, but I knew by returning to school I'd
return to the continuity and friendships which had sustained me
during the previous years' rockiness in my home life.
Right off the bat, the guidance counselor was pulling aside each of
my friends one-by-one over the first two weeks to talk with them
about their college options and provide suggestions; they would talk
excitedly about these meetings and what they were going to pursue.
Having entered High School with the goal of going to the Air Force
Academy as a stepping stone to the Astronaut program, that goal had
been dashed when I discovered that, in order to get into any
military service, one needed to first pass a physical. Given my
'situation', I couldn't imagine how I was going to do that and my
life long thoughts of becoming an astronaut disappeared. I never
imagined doing anything with computers in my childhood, but by dumb
luck in my Freshman year I had stumbled upon one and by my Sophomore
year I was a 'Computer Programming Genius', so some felt. It was now
clear to me that I would, of course, be going into the computer
field, maybe even taking it by storm...! Suffering from a bit of
ego are we? Yes, but not unjustifiably given how Zack
Hatch had been touring me to various computer fairs in my previous
years and people showing-up at the grocery to request my help with
their computers.
Back in seventh grade, when two of my best friends moved away with
the turn of the calendar year, I got a little nervous about losing
friends and began the new year talking to my friends about starting a
'Club', we could come up with little rules and by laws, but
essentially I just wanted to make sure no other friends in my life
were going to abruptly go away. Once I satisfied myself with this, I
let the whole club concept fade away. To over compensate for my home
life this year, I felt compelled to gather my friends around me once
more and revived the 'Club' concept, but this time I was adding the
twist of it being a Computer Club. Effectively, once a
week we would stay after school on late bus night and have classes to
essentially teach computer programming and end the sessions with a
bit of game playing.
Luke really liked this idea, whereas my other friends had other
things they needed to do. Still, with Luke's enthusiasm, he said we
could have the club officially registered with the school and went to
the office to see what was needed. Turned out we had to have a
teacher as the club sponsor. Zack would have been the obvious
choice, but he wasn't available. So we went to the other two
math teachers, but one already had the math club and didn't want to
sponsor another club, the other math teacher didn't have the time as
he had taken on the bulk of Zack's classes for the year. Roaming the
school and racking our brains, we checked back at the office and
verified that we just needed a
teacher, not one who was familiar with the topic of the club, so then
we went out to search for any teacher who'd be our sponsor.
The wood shop teacher was a nice guy and we knew he also taught some
of the other cool classes, such as 'Photography' and we thought...
Okay, I'm lying: We were just walking down the hallway and he
walked out of the wood shop door and bumped into us. We each excused
ourselves. Then, as an after thought, Luke and I turned back to him
and said, ''Hey, we're forming a computer club? Would you like to be
our sponsor?''
''Do I have to know anything about computers?''
“Nope.''
''Okay!''
And we were off to the office to register the club. Now 'official',
we started recruiting for the next few days. We posted a sign-up
sheet and when that didn't attract much attention, Luke and I flat
out trawled the school soliciting recruits. We only got a couple of
takers from our grade level and began trying to recruit from the
Junior level, rounded up a few more takers, and Luke felt that was a
good enough start, but ultimately as I was doing this to fill a hole
in my soul, I decided to go through the latest Sophomores as well and
found two girls who said they'd be interested.
Next was the question of where to meet. The original Trash 80
Model I had been moved from the teacher's lounge to its own
little closet halfway through our Sophomore year. This didn't seem
like a great place to stuff in a group of ten students and show them
how to use a computer. Fortunately, the school had just bought a
Trash 80 Model III for the office this year. It came with
a printer and, as they didn't have anywhere else to put it, they
placed it on a side table in the office's conference room. This room
was not only much bigger but had the newfangled 'white boards'
mounted on a couple of walls which were pretty futuristic for the
nineteen eighties. I checked with the office and they said we could
use it for the club. Great news for the club, but also great news
for me as it'd give me a chance to familiarize myself with another
variation of computer.
All was set and we'd have our first meeting with the first week of
October.
By the end of September, I noticed that the guidance counselor had
finished going through my friends and even all my other classmates
that I knew of. Clearly, he'd forgotten about me and so I took the
initiative of making an appointment with him. When I arrived, he
wanted to know what was up. I noted that he had talked to all of my
friends about their college options but seemed to have forgotten me.
He told me he hadn't, he just didn't see any reason to talk to me.
Oh? Yes, as I already had the job at the grocery store. Huh?
Some of my other friends also had jobs at the grocery store and he'd
spoken to them about college options:
''Well, yes, that's true. But given your I.Q., staying at the
grocery store would be the best option for you. You might even one
day work yourself up to the position of stocker,'' he concluded with
a reassuring smile.
As I had started out at the branch grocery store stocking shelves at
the age of eight, the thought of one day working up to that level
seemed like a foolish goal. But what had most caught my interest in
what he said, I asked about: ''So you know what my I.Q. is?''
''Yes, they had tested you as well as a number of other students back
in Nineteen Seventy-Three.''
''So what is it?'' I asked but in truth I wanted to know how it said
that being a grocery stocker was my best option in life.
''Oh, well, it's often counter productive to tell people what their
I.Q. score is as they will often give up and not try anymore.''
And I continued to sit in the chair in his office with this
slowly-sinking feeling, ''But you can give me an idea of where
the score the falls, can't you?''
At this he started flipping through the pages of the folder on the
desk in front of him. It dawned on me that the folder must be about
me as he continued, ''Actually,
I shouldn't, as even giving that could...'' And his words trailed
off as he reached a page that caught his attention. ''Well,
actually,'' he started again, but suddenly closed the folder
and told me I needed to go.
What? What about the I.Q. score? He didn't
have time to talk about it any more as he realized he had another
appointment or something else he had to do. Apparently he wasn't
sure which, but the message was clear: It was time for me to go.
I drifted out of the counselor's office, past the other counselor's
door and into the hallway. I realized something had really bothered
him when he saw my I.Q. score in the folder and I wondered what it
was. I'd later learn that, upon graduation, we could take the
school's copy of our file with us. This was what I ended up planning
to do.
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