High School

High school was a huge experience for me. I found friendships with all sorts of people. I was exposed to a range of cultures and backgrounds. Overall I began to find myself desiring balance. I wanted to be smart but didn't want studying to overshadow fun. There is so much to learn in your early teens. So many things that I just hadn't learned yet. I was good at algebra and could have learned calculus but I would have rather learned to change a head gasket, learned the blues scales or proper football tackling technique.

In my junior year I took an elective class in ecology. Our teacher was a former logger, ex-Marine and environmentalist. He taught us about the economics of ecology (long before this was a trend). I admired that he had life experiences that seemed to legitimize his views. I saw how rural conservatives listened with more interest to him versus their untrusting view of urban liberals (particularly those standard-bearers of liberality, public school teachers!). On the other hand I saw how he could persuade a crowd of those urban liberals to consider the benefits of the timber industry and their own connection to it. I knew that if I wanted people to listen to me I was going to have to break out of the mold into which I had been cast.

Then there was the machismo. Join the Marines. I could have filled in the veteran bubble on my resume with a shorter stint in the Air Force learning computer networking. Considering my current occupation that would have been a big bonus. Of course, I wanted to separate myself as far from the white, trendy, OC-like suburbs as possible. I wanted to be in the infantry!

I ended up as an Amphibious Vehicle Crewman, a job that I would learn a lot from.