Prelude...

To a post about law school and why I'll likely never attend it...

First, please excuse my grammar and usage: I haven't written anything in a while and I'm far too lazy to go back and edit. Second, please excuse, if you will, a tangential anecdote taken from the world of physics:

Working at CalTech in the 1930s, Fritz Zwicky was a brilliant observational astronomer and a key figure in his institution's rise to preeminence in astronomy and astrophysics. However, he was a terrible physicist and a worse mathematician. Fritz was absolutely convinced of the existence of a collapsed star, a star composed entirely of neutrons that he called, not surprisingly, a "Neutron Star." However, his attempts to prove its existence mathematically earned him the ridicule of his colleagues. In the world of physicists, his disastrously wrong forays into math did his case more harm than good. Intuition and observation, not scientific knowledge, had convinced Zwicky that Neutron Stars not only existed, but were the product of the phenomenon known as a "Supernovae." As you may have guessed, later advances and more mathematically competent physicists eventually proved that Zwicky was right on both counts.

I relate to Fritz Zwicky. Not because I'm a "brilliant" anything. Not because anything I say or believe will eventually prove to vindicate me. No. I relate to Fritz because in real life I operate much like him. I often have no sustainable reason or evidence to believe something - or to draw certain conclusions - but I doggedly hold to them nonetheless. It worked for Fritz. It might not work for me. Regardless, it's how I operate.

Anyway, back on topic. More workdays than not, I find myself saying something along these lines to a high-school upper classmen: "Choose a major that your passionate about, not one that you believe will get the job. It will work out better for you in the end." It may be true. It may be complete bullshit. From a purely philosophical point of view, it sounds noble. In the eyes of a cynic it may be mere intellectual romanticism. The "truth" is irrelevant - if it exists at all - but one thing I can say: I followed this very advice.

I was a first generation college student. My father's oldest sister (the oldest child of 11) graduated from a less than stellar university and an equally uninspiring seminary. Aside from her, neither my parents, nor their siblings, nor their parents, graduated from college. My father's side of the family tended to the "whatever job we can get" category, while my mother's side was largely occupied in the family construction business. I was raised a golden child - my mother's great intellectual experiment. Reading at an impressively early age, inquisitive by nature, and successful in school. Better yet, incompetent in the practical arts of working and creating things with my hands. I was one of them there book smart people. It was pre-ordained that I'd lead the family charge into post-secondary education. Not that others didn't try: my cousin Casey went to a community college, drank a lot, and dropped out to land, not unexpectedly, in the aforementioned construction business. My sister graduated high school with no idea what to do with herself, and after a year in Hawaii living with an Aunt and Uncle, settled for many years of working in a grocery store. Other cousins, unfortunately, were plagued less by expectations of education than the desire that they avoid prison, drug use, and siring/birthing children that they could not support. Sadly, many of them have failed in these tasks.

As grade school progressed, I kept up my early academic momentum., but my performance started to separate in high school. A's in English, History, and most things related to the humanities. Mostly B's in Math and Science (and a dreaded "C" in high school Calc.). A casual observer could see the areas that I was most successful in and logically conject that they were also those that I was most interested in. Even with my shortcomings and lack of interest in more than one subject, I finished high school in the top 10% of my class and managed to bullshit my way into an ACT score that - even in today's test-crazed high school world - ranks in the 98th percentile. Like the good mama's boy that I am, I went to the highly selective public school in my hometown with some pretty decent scholarships.

I'd always had a thing for History. I had always loved "facts." Part of it came from my dad, a history "buff" in every sense of the word. He didn't give a shit how Charles Beard's interpretation of Civil War causation differed from that of Eric Foner, James M. McPherson, or Mills Thornton. All he cared about was that the Civil War happened, it was interesting to him, and Hollywood was kind enough to make movies about it to entertain him. Even in my young days, I would lie in front of the television reading the Encyclopedia absorbing the published in 1967 account of things that had happened in the past. Were I quizzed about it now, maybe I'd say I did this because my brain seemed adept at absorbing and retaining this information. Or, perhaps my brain developed this skill because I exercised it in such a fashion. Whatever the reason, history was my passion.

My "passion" butted up against my family's expectations. I don't recall them ever really saying so, but I think my parents wanted me to be a Business major. I'm even more confident that my Grandfather, to whom college was an even more foreign concept, believed it. The parental units weren't thrilled when I told them that I was going to study History, but it was Gramps who dropped the bomb. Yes, my mother's father uttered that pearl most history students will hear often enough that they consider commemorating it in song: "History? What are you going to do with that? Teach?"

Truth is, I had no goddamned idea what I was going to do with a History major. Shit, I was in college, and that in and of itself was uncharted territory. Better yet, despite Mrs. Grossnickel's efforts in Junior-Year American Heritage* (nowadays, AP US History), I had no idea what a college history major entailed.** I had guessed that I would read alot. I was reasonably certain that I would not be working on extensive algebraic equations or doing field research on the western rattlesnake. I was confident in one thing: regardless of how I performed in the courses that did not appeal to me, I would finish with a 4.0 GPA in history. That's one of the few accurate life predictions that I've made.

* At my high school, it was difficult to take more than three years of "history." Freshmen year was the compulsory Missouri "Civics" course. Sophomore year was "World History," one semester of which I saw as my instructor the football coach, a man who happened to be a colossal fucking idiot. A man who argued with me that Hitler wasn't a "good leader" (whatever the fuck that term even means). Yes, he (Hitler, not the football coach) was probably as disgusting and reprehensible a human being as has ever lived, but anyone who can look me in the eye and tell me Hitler couldn't lead and inspire people, for better or worse, is a fucking idiot. Aside: It must be said that this argument alone is not the basis for my claim that this man is/was a fucking idiot. Finally, junior year students had a choice: A. Non-weighted American History, the standard route. B. Weighted and notoriously - in hindsight, purposefully - difficult American Heritage.

** "Heritage," as we called it, was avoided by nearly all students even "pretending" to the throne of Valedictorian. I took the class because I enjoyed and excelled in history. A couple of my classmates seemingly took it because their father's taught history at the local university and it was expected of them. Most of the others, well, I have no idea why they were there. It was in this class that I came the closest to "pulling an all-nighter." I once slept 3 hours due to an American Heritage project and not a single time in high school or college did I sleep less due to school obligations. Mrs. Grossnickel was fanatical about following "Turabian" style in all of our papers, and that one thing was all I really knew about studying History in college. Not until my "Historiography" course during my Sophomore year at the University did I have any idea what that particular concept was.