When I meet new people and listen to their stories, I am most captivated by clues of courage. I don’t think the average person sees their own self as courageous, but maybe they don’t know where to look. As an older student in a very young school, I draw on fifty-plus years of living as I observe the current population that surrounds me.
First, I need to get past the annoyance that they don’t know what I know because they just don’t. O.J. Simpson they know about. Charles Manson they don’t. Clues fall into a black hole. Blondie, who just turned fifty, offered a hint to the class by asking if anyone had heard the Beatles song Helter Skelter. The excited response was, “Charles Manson was one of the Beatles?” That’s right. John, Paul, George and Charlie. Forget the stabbings; just shoot me.
The students’ backgrounds are varied and I ponder what brought them to the school we are in. It’s not your average alma mater. I recently took a phone call from my lawyer in the school parking lot and he laughingly asked me if I had my cheerleader uniform on. If he could see where I was standing, he would know how hilarious that was. My school is a small building under a railroad trestle adjacent to a church. Half our classes are in the building and the rest are in the church.
The school was founded by Mr. and Mrs. B, and it is an accredited two-year business school. Not long ago, Mr. B passed away, leaving his wife in charge of his life’s dream, our college. We are truly a Mom and Pop business. Which gives it a sweetness and familiarity you couldn’t find at other schools. Mrs. B carried on in her husband’s absence and is present every single day and involved in every single decision. She gives advice, encouragement, and something it’s borderline illegal for educators to give anymore: hugs.
The student body is its own cast of characters. There is the very young mother with the ubiquitous baby-daddy; a young Orthodox woman with a small child, an ex-husband, several masters degrees, and the same mistaken belief I had when I started that academic intelligence would graduate her sooner; a young woman who professes to be the love-child of a famous celebrity’s father; a couple of guys with sweet smiles and Sean John wardrobes; and a palette of twenty-something lovelies who have either acted dumb for so long they have forgotten they’re not or else the act has replaced the reality.
But they’re all in attendance every day, working at jobs to pay for school and going for broke that this is where their future lies. That in itself is brave. And often entertaining. This week one of the doe-eyed bunnies sat next to me in computer lab. Halfway through the period, she fluttered a breathy sigh and moaned, “This stupid computer! It keeps telling me ‘accur’ is with an ‘o’.” I glanced at her screen where she was trying to ignore the spell check. I’d have offered to switch computers with her, but she would have found mine just as stupid.
Below is a visual of my favorite Teacher of Fearlessness flying off a cliff in Costa Rica. This picture of Daughter suggests many things, among them why I started to color my hair early.
