The last thing that I got back when I broke up with one woman was my copy of Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, a high school graduation gift from Miss Struble, Latin teacher extraordinaire. First I got the housecoat back. Then the toaster, the two hundred dollars, and the relationship books. Plus the TV and VCR. Finally I had to ask for my dictionary back so that I could look up the word "mischievous."
She brought the book back and left it in my car, no note, nothing. And it was the first time that my dictionary had been a part of an emotional drama.
Usually it has been a simple repository for historically significant items. I have my niece's 1987 high school graduation ceremony invitation in there. I'm saving it for 2012, when it will mean something to her. Some things have fallen out and disappeared. But I've still got several copies of my college transcript from the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Every few years a transcript slips out of the dictionary and I glance at the old road map of my trek through college and graduate school. It's a deceptively simple document. Black lettering on yellow paper, it clearly lays out what I got credit for, the total credits awarded, and the dates that degrees were awarded.
But there are stories behind the names of the classes and the simple grade listings. There's "Drama in Western Culture," in my first semester, with Peter Arnott, who chanted the "brek-kek-kek-koax-koax" Greek chorus from Aristophanes' "The Frogs" with abandon, to our amazement. And there's "Principles of Communication Arts" the same semester, one of the most boring classes ever experienced anywhere.
There's the note of "CEEB General Exam 11-69" which relates the fact that I passed out of an entire semester by taking fifteen dollars worth of tests. But what it doesn't say is that my score on the social science exam would not have passed me out except that scores were so low nationally that they re-calibrated the results and I got a passing grade. But they only told the people who came in to inquire. So, since I stopped in to ask, I got excused from another half-semester of classes.
Which got me out of college a whole semester early. Not that I did anything interesting with those five months, but I did get out early.
Then there's "English Semester," which was four English courses rolled into one, three historical periods of English literature plus a composition course. This was a course that I attended barefoot, wearing bellbottoms and an earring, and yet did some of my best work, ending up with nine hours of "A" and three of "B."
Then things start to get interesting, if you know what really happened. If you look closely, you'll note that the grades for the entire next semester are a simple "P" for pass. That's because the administration offered a deal to all students late in the spring that they could receive a grade of pass/fail for all classes if they would just go home. This was to eliminate the masses of student anti-war demonstrators that were dominating campus life. I took the deal, but I didn't leave, because I lived in Iowa City, not on campus.
Other stories pop out of the transcript, too. The Chinese calligraphy, civilization, theater and poetry classes that I kept taking, despite the C's I kept getting, just because the instructor was so fascinating. This was the guy who, to illustrate how Chinese actors disappear on-stage, came running into the classroom at full tilt and then slid under the desk like it was second base with a roof. Those courses were fashionable at the time, but no one could figure out how to get an A or B. We kept going, participating fully, and getting average grades. I still don't know why. Of course, we didn't care much at the time.
Then there's the "Spec. Proj. Undergrad," which was listed as a poetry or film course, but was actually a class in "centering." This class was taught off-campus by a guy who had achieved his fifteen minutes of fame, but anonymously, when the photo of him in his "grim reaper" costume at an anti-war rally had been published all over the U.S.
The class looked at the concept of centering individual energies in the cosmos from every new age angle then in existence, which included, among others, natural foods, ceramics, camping out, American Indian shamanism, anti-war activism, and meditation. As a matter of fact, this is the course that required that we "look into some form of meditation." Which I did, and I'm still doing it.
And it's the place where I met my future first wife.
Then of course there's all the graduate school stuff. But I'll spare you, since my transcript is not what I wanted to write about here at all. At least, not that transcript.
No, the transcript that really interests me is the one that's not in my dictionary. It's the imaginary one. The transcript of all of the lessons and classes that I seem to have taken since the University of Iowa stopped keeping a record.
Classes like, "How To Have A Hundred Different Jobs And No Visible Career," or "How Not To Pay Taxes Because You Make So Little That Uncle Sam Doesn't Care." Then there's the always exciting "Getting Married 101," followed by "Getting Divorced 101." Of course, there's the follow-up courses, "Getting Married on the Rebound," and the sequel "Getting Divorced Again."
Somehow they all sound like Adult Education Classes. But I do think I deserve credit.
Speaking of credit, there was the entire sequence of courses in "Getting Credit the Easy Way." "Getting More Credit Cards Because You Already Have Some," and the sequel, "Ruining Your Credit Because Your Ex-Wife Had Credit Cards Out in your Name That You Didn't Even Know About."
Then there's "Searching For the Perfect Job." Plus "Menial Work in the Food Service, Janitorial and Paper-delivery Industries to Pay Bills While You Look for The Perfect Job."
Plus "Sales Training for The English Major." "Lead Cards, Territories, And Pretending to have a Limp for the Advertising Space Salesperson." And the recurring, perennial offering, "How to Make Do With Work That Doesn't Suit You At All Since You Have No Idea What You Really Want To Do Anyway." All those credits in sales. You could almost call it a minor.
Of course, my career testing put sales way below my big interests, which were to be an advertising executive, singer, or high school teacher. A real obvious grouping. But sales was only of average interest to me. Still, it was higher than highway patrolman. I scored a minus three points on that one. An obvious no-no.
But no-nos didn't always stop me from taking classes, and even repeating them. There's that one course that I kept repeating: "The Joys of Step-Parenting: All of the Responsibilities and None of the Respect." Plus the exciting follow-up, "Visitation Rights of the Ex Step-Parent." Sort of a short course.
Last but not least there's the fairly recent offering "What To Do Now That You Have Discovered That You Are Codependent, Commitment-phobic, Hypoglycemic, And Have A Ticked-off Inner Child."
Yes, there are quite few classes that I've taken since I got out of the University of Iowa. I like to think that I'm getting some kind of credit for them.
And I also wish that the lessons could have come in pill form, just like the classes in Iowa City. Yes, if only we all had classes in life itself, in stuff that we really need, but earlier in life. Like "How to Pick the Right Spouse," "How to Handle Money and Credit," "How to Keep The Lines of Communication Open in Your Marriage," "Cooking for One," and "Discovering Your Life's Work."
If we had stuff like that I wouldn't have left college a semester early. And maybe it wouldn't have taken me so long to learn what I have learned the hard way, which is simply that you'd better (1) know yourself, (2) know yourself, and (3) know yourself.
It's kind of a three part class with the same title, plus you need to take all three at the same time.
The first class requires that you know yourself by knowing what you like to do. That means, get some career testing early, read and do the exercises in What Color Is Your Parachute? and then do the work that you love. Be brave. Find a way to do the work that you really want to do.
The second class is that if you want to have great relationships with other people you had better start by knowing a lot about yourself. Relationships are just the stage on which you play out the dynamics of your relationship with yourself. And it turns out that you can't truly give anything to anybody else if you don't also give it to yourself. The "only a full cup can overflow" theory. And then if you want to fix your relationships, you'll know who to fix first and where to fix it.
The third class is to know yourself to be the creator of all that you experience. Take responsibility for everything that happens in your life. Anytime things happen to you, you're a victim, and you're stuck. Once you decide that on some level you chose for these things to happen, and that you can choose differently next time, you move toward freedom.
Your mind is the terminal for the vast computer of nature. And, like any other computer, it's "GIGO," or "garbage in, garbage out." Put the good stuff in, and nature will say, "No problem, pal, here comes some good stuff back." Maybe nature's computer has her own processing time, but she is programmable. It's your choice.
It would be good to take these classes, because if you don't, somebody or something else is going to end up defining your life for you. And you won't have a clue what work to do or who to marry.
And if you do take them, you won't just get credit. You'll get a degree. A higher degree. Of happiness, anyway.
But you won't find your grades in any dictionary. You'll just know.
Map of Iowa Index Page
Next Chapter, #17. Mt. Pleasant, A City in
Denial