Episode 2 : Pleasant Hope

The speaker shares their experiences in high school and college. They talk about their love for cars and how it shaped their identity. They also mention their lack of close friends and a girlfriend in high school, which left a void. They took a correspondence course to graduate early and attended Southwest Missouri State University. They had a challenging scholastic schedule and did well in chemistry. They contemplated pursuing engineering but ended up joining the Army Reserves ROTC instead. After completing basic training, they moved out of their parents' house and got their first girlfriend. However, they eventually became overwhelmed and dropped out of school. They had a brief military career and then lived with a friend, partying and working odd jobs. Today, we're continuing with the pre-Alaska Dub story, picking up towards the end of high school. So earlier, we had touched upon my identity as sort of the outsider, scholastic, party kid. I got my car and my license. My red, 70s Chevelle, Malibu kind of became my identity. I put a lot of love into it, worked on it, became sort of a wrench guy. That sort of began my... That car set a lot of patterns, wanting to modify things, seeing how other people who actually had skills and money did theirs, and wanting to try to duplicate that with no experience or money, with mixed results. And then, eventually, I ended up making a mess of things and walking away from it, which, you know, isn't the best example to set. Unfortunately, it did set a pattern with the vehicles. After my Chevelle, I ended up getting a 280Z, the last year before that. It was a 78-280Z, and that was a nice car. Got it painted a charcoal gray, and it was fast. My other one was fast. I used to love driving fast, all the time. I think if I were to have a cat, Gene, it would have to be with the nine lives, because I know those cars would probably shave three, maybe four lives off that total. But my friends were all older. And so, by the time I was a junior, and especially my senior year, I didn't have... None of my closest friends were still in school anymore. And I never had a girlfriend in high school. So, that left sort of a void, which, you know, I think if circumstances were different, you know, in those formative years, that maybe the personal personality traits, which emerged over the decades, maybe wouldn't have, you know, maybe I would have had more social skills built from an early age. Maybe that's the way to say it. But with that situation existing, I was in a hurry to get out of school. So, I took a correspondence course. I was sort of... I was pretty smart back then. I think I've since smoked myself into not too bright a state. But my math skills, something I also inherited from my dad. Supposedly, he... Supposedly, he had a math whiz, Gene. His mother, a Kentucky Hill woman, was just... When my dad was doing his math, he was ambitious. And took the highest level courses he could in this little Kentucky mountain school. And he would read a word problem out. And by the time he finished reading it, the way she described it, the numbers would dance in her head, and the correct answer would just spit out. And my dad was a super capable. He ended up... One of his positions in the Air Force was as a statistics instructor. So, I probably should have risen higher in the ranks of modern mathematicians. But, you know, got sidetracked. Ended up in Alaska. Not that it excludes any sort of success in math. But I guess. So, to graduate early in December of 84, only doing half of my senior year, that was... That was possible by taking this correspondence course in Geometry II. Gave me that extra half credit I needed to qualify, to satisfy all my credits. I didn't even go to my high school graduation when they had it later, months later. I'd also... The school I had chosen, the college I had chosen to attend, it was different from the correspondence place. But it's Southwest Missouri State University. They've changed it. They've tweaked their name a little bit since then. But let's see. Famous alum would include John Goodman. And... They're enmancing the stone. They're casting... And I apologize. My memory is not what it should be this morning with SNSU alums. But this summer, between my junior and senior years in high school, I took a couple classes at Southwest Missouri State. So, I had a leg up as far as my freshman... My first freshman semester, which would have been my... Which would have been in the spring of 85. And I still lived at home. A diligent student. Did pretty well. My first calculus class kind of... Well, I did not pass my first calculus class. I will have to admit to that. Even having taken the correspondence course and literally every math course, high-level math course that was available in my little country school. Math analysis, my final... It was kind of like a pre-calc. Math analysis, my final semester in high school. I was the only student there in the class. It was just me and the teacher. It was a little odd. But did well and proved some stuff that I guess I was the only one that had proved this one thing in my book. I thought I was, as I have described, I thought I was pretty solid in math. But just like in physics, my little country school, I did well in chemistry because they offered that. Let me start. I'll start again with the whole college career. In high school, I took all the highest classes that I could, focusing on math and science and English. And a couple hours away from where I lived, there was the University of Missouri School of Mines, like mining, at Rolla. And that had ended up becoming a very respected engineering school. And I was such a motorhead that I wanted to get into design, car design, and any sort of engineering, utilize those skills and provide a good income. So I was in a pre-engineering program, which was basically shaved of almost all the humanities. I had five semester hours for my first two years of five hours of calculus, five hours of chemistry, five hours of physics. And then to shake things up, you get a little English here, political history, a smattering of humanities. And then programming started in there after the first year. Maybe even not that long. Fortran 77, for all you programmers out there. So I really loved it, actually. Became obsessed. So I had a very challenging scholastic schedule and made acceptable grades. I'd say I was a B college student overall. Chemistry ended up being my favorite and my best performing class. Actually, sort of I did get invited to join their program. Not that there was any sort of incentive, financial or anything. This is where there's a lot of branches and my possible futures. I'm glad I chose what I did, because otherwise I wouldn't probably be on this mic speaking to you folks and have my wonderful wife and family and be where I am now, which is I very much love and appreciate where I am now. But a person can't help but look back and wonder if, just wonder perhaps, I would have ended up in the same spot, but in different circumstances, if I had continued on and gotten my engineering degree, especially in Mines. I mean, I could have ended up in Alaska anyhow. This podcast isn't about what would have been, could have been. It's about what was. What was, worked hard, lived his own. Had a good friend I'd ride in with about every day. He was also a chemistry student who lived on a dairy farm, which was an interesting combination. So sometimes we'd work together often and he continued on and got his degree. So I made it as far. I would have been a junior, would have been a junior at the end of my last semester. So what happened? Part of my, I touched upon earlier about having the older friends who left school, graduated and so forth, before I did. One of them was in the Army Reserves and it's with the college incentives that the Army offered at the time. I wanted to spend more time with my good friend and the silver-tongued devil that is an Army recruiter. I ended up joining the Army Reserves ROTC. So I can't remember the year. It might be 86, 87. I'll have to do the math later. Leave a comment in the notes there. But the summer before my final college semester, I actually went through basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I had joined the illustrious, what was it, the 3rd, 75th Field Artillery, based out of Sprinkle, Missouri. So at that time, I was 6'4 and 236 pounds when I enlisted. I think I left about 190. It's my only, just my only achievement in basic training was most improved private for that weight loss. But at the same time, I got shin splints and was hobbling around through half of basic on crutches. So it was definitely a challenging experience. I wish I were way, way more fit. That would have been a different experience. So I come back from Oklahoma looking good, feeling good. And it was the summer when Top Gun came out because it just so happened to have my leather bomber jacket for my graduation gifts. The only thing I wanted for graduation was an antique leather Harley-Davidson bomber jacket, which I got and loved. And with the short hair and the smile, I got some, like, plus size Tom Cruise comments. The short of it is, come back from basic training and to shake things up even further, I moved out of my parents' house for the first time and into the dormitories there on campus at SMS. And subsequently, got my first girlfriend, which was pretty cool. So, you know, the combination of living at home, living away from home for the first time, being in a relationship, a physical relationship at that for the first time, having a 20-hour class load in pre-engineering, as well as the ROTC requirements, I basically cracked. Did the best I could. Got overwhelmed. And by that winter, I'd basically flushed everything. Yeah, jumped out of school, broke up with a girl. Although I'd gone to basic training, that was only one half of your initial training. I never went to the AIT, where you learn any skills. So I was basically good for scrubbing down tanks and houses and trucks in the parking lot of the Army Air and Surface Center. So didn't have much of a military career following that either. So, a bit listless. Ended up moving back with the folks. And you know, just working some jobs. Didn't really, you know, wasn't really going anywhere. Ended up getting a, ended up moving in. Moved in with a friend. A friend from high school. Moved in with a friend from high school. Two of us in this little house that was between Pleasant Oak and Springfield, close to Springfield. And, you know, drinking, partying. And I guess at this time, okay, I was trying to remember where I was working. I actually had not a bad job. When I was trying to get on my feet, I was working different places through a temporary agency. And one of the places was the French's Mustard, R.T. French plant. I'm a quality control, shipping, shipping quality control clerk. But they ended up hiring me full time for the same, similar position that I was doing as a temp. And so that paid pretty well. And, you know, I met another lady. She was older than I was. And so about years had gone. I was about 21 now. Well, I was 21. And one, I believe, one Monday morning after I had spent the weekend with my new girlfriend, back before Zellworld, of course, I see a note sticking out of my front door as I walk up when I get home. And it says, Matt's dead. Call home. And basically, that was a note from my mom, informing me that my roommate had died over the weekend. Worse yet was the circumstances in that it seemed to be a total alcoholic death wish. In that drinking and driving was, shamefully, that was the pastime. Driving, slow driving country roads, listening to music, drinking, smoking. That's what we did. That was a pastime. But my friend Matt was wrestling with some demons. And he had picked up another one of our friends who was a hitchhiker, or I think that's what that was, picked him up, a hitchhiker. And as this person recounted, Matt was, he wasn't in the, he wasn't in his head, in his own head, because I was drinking something else. And he was driving so excessively fast. Our other friend was buckled up, hunkered down, terrified. My friend lost control of the car and ended up basically decapitating himself. I don't know how the passenger survived the wreck. So, that was sort of an abrupt end to a chapter. Moved out of that house. Moved in with a girl I was, a lady I was seeing. She was 13 years older, so one of those situations learned a lot in many, many, many respects. But moved into her house, which was actually a converted, it was a former, so we started out as, her house was a former frat house that she now occupied with her I got my chronology a little bit wrong. At this point, she was just a friend. We weren't seeing each other yet. And she was, I was somewhere else over that weekend. And she was kind enough to offer me this spare apartment that she had in this huge house in downtown Springfield, right on the campus. And it was her, her daughters, and her boyfriend. And it was very kind of her, and I gratefully accepted and started living there. And one feature of this room, it had its own entrance off the back porch and everything. But there was a, in the back of my closet, there was a door which led into the back of her closet. And I think this is a good place to, to pause and let your imagination, let your imagine, just imagine, I don't know, don't imagine too much. I will, I will continue in the next episode. And until then, I will be good.