All of us, during high school, had to sign up for shop classes. As I recall it was two classes total… one for each semester. There might have been more if you were a shop person. I wasn’t. I was only going to take the minimum required. From a practical standpoint I wasn’t going to sign up for auto shop. My life had been auto shop, every day since I could remember. The problem was that I didn’t learn anything about the automobile except as a form of transportation. Not that I didn’t have opportunities, I just chose not to pay attention to any of the details beyond putting a key in and starting the car and driving it and applying the brakes when needed. I had learned over the years about popping the clutch and using jumper cables, changing a tire and charging a battery. What was under the hood remains a mystery to me to this day. There was Home Economics, sheet metal, woodworking, printing and electricity. What a dismal selection. I always thought that maybe there were other things that might have been more interesting, but the curriculum gods made only these available. I finally chose printing and electricity. I don’t know what the thought process was. First of all, I had no clue what either of these was about. Maybe electricity taught you how not to get shocked. Printing… your guess is as good as mine.
It turned out that the main element of electricity was to learn about creating a circuit. All the terms associated with electricity…ohms, voltage, current, circuit, resistor, capacitor, inductor, transistor, amps, watts, resistance, were unfamiliar to me and I wondered if they were actually in the English language. The last word was the one that resonated with me. I had a lot of resistance to this class. I think I missed the purpose which was to learn about basic electricity. All that really eluded me because I got caught up in the jargon. You have to admit that these electrical terms are not used in normal conversation. I didn’t feel that I needed to learn all about electricity, because if you had a problem, you could always call an electrician… right?
Printing was not nearly as complicated. You had a table and a huge printer’s tray with what seemed like a hundred compartments. In each compartment were individual lead pieces with letters, symbols and some were blank for spaces. All you had to do was use these lead pieces of type and put together messages that you could then put ink on and print the thing that you just created. Sound simple. Well, it turned out that it wasn’t that simple. This is one thing where being dyslexic was probably an advantage. (Just so you know I was not dyslexic.) I don’t remember exactly, but it seemed like you had to put things together like you were looking at them in a mirror or something. It always seemed like my stuff turned out upside down and backwards. The good news is that I wasn’t the only one. I finally figured it out, but I am sure I was scarred with my constant exposure to lead. That is not a good thing… right? So do you think the statute of limitations has run out on my being able to bring a cause of action against North High School for lead exposure, and for that matter, they probably also had asbestos in the walls… that would explain how I didn’t make the honor roll every semester. I guess you could say I was a victim… maybe that is also why I am short… it is all starting to make sense to me.
Each of us attended shop classes. Most of the girls took Home Economics (which was easily the most useful of all of the classes except possibly auto shop). I am sure that each of us also picked up certain things from these classes that rounded out our high school education experience. Looking back, I guess you would have to agree that there was no risk of a boring transcript… which included things like… canoeing, swimming in your birthday suit, electricity, home economics, Latin, journalism, advanced mathematics, English, physics, chemistry, social studies, government, geometry, trigonometry and others. This mix of classes absolutely prepared me for the future. Whatever it held for me.
