There are lots of things from my past I don't recall all that well: Where I was on several key dates; the actual impact of people or events now considered to be "history-making"; what I had for lunch.
But there is one thing I've successfully blocked out above all others: Writing college/scholarship essays.
If you're the parent of a high school senior today, you're fully vested in at least the editing of these essays. But I can't remember having to spend all that much time on them as a young man.
Maybe there wasn't as much emphasis on communication skills when I was trying to get into college. Maybe it was easier to winnow the herd of applicants. Maybe college and scholarship boards hadn't quite figured out they could require someone to write 2,000 words on "How I plan to solve all the world's problems and still achieve work-life balance while discovering my authentic self in the space I choose to inhabit."
I attended a Central Arkansas high school where college application wasn't exactly ... a thing. That's not to say many students didn't have to write extensively about their lives and recent activities. You could call those "essays." The police might characterize them as "statements." It probably depends on your perspective. And whether your car still has fully functioning windows and a radio in it.
In that context, when called on to write an essay about what I wanted to be in the future, "a former resident of this town" was a perfectly acceptable answer. Apparently now, college recruiters are looking for a little more.
That illustrates one of the key dilemmas facing quite a few college applicants. Despite assurances to the contrary, they really don't have any idea what they want to be when they grow up. Or, if the conduct some (potentially someone like, oh, say, me) means anything, that they want to grow up at all.
Asking them to explain what they want to do with their admission or scholarship money starts what can generously be described as a story-telling competition that would make Mark Twain's jaw drop.
Answering that "I have brothers and sisters and my parents don't have any more spare internal organs, so it's this or I need to practice saying 'do you want fries with that' with conviction," may draws points for honesty, but not necessarily execution.
Yep, there's a lot of world peace and disease-curing being packed into essays by people who don't yet understand a cellphone bill has to be paid. Like, every month.
I've spent a lot of time in an advisory capacity while, one by one, my kids cranked out two and a half single-spaced, don't-make-the periods-bigger-to-take-up-space pages on topics ranging from "How I Want to Save the World" to "How Saving the World Would Change Me" to "Is Saving the World A Good Thing?" to "Why a Sloth Would Make the Best Pet."
Helping your kids with a college admission/scholarship essay is equal parts boredom as you sit through the 50th parsing of, "college good, paying for it better," and sheer terror when you consider he or she might not get in and would therefore remain camped out in a bedroom upstairs, emerging only briefly to drink all your diet soda and halt the recording of your favorite remodeling/baking/action-adventure/hunting show.
For someone who, at least in his formative years, had just about everything he wrote subjected to "advising" from an editor with five other stories to read and 15 minutes to go before deadline, going over someone else's copy brings back some unpleasant memories. Like, of getting back a story so marked up with red ink it looked like someone had cut himself while shaving with a chainsaw.
But, to paraphrase that line from one of the Godfather movies, just when you think you're out, they drag you back in. And make you help them decide between using "is critically important" or, "is one of the greatest challenges we face." Not sure I remember what that might be, but it sure seemed like a big deal.
Seriously, it's not all adverbs and mangled Kennedy quotes. Sometimes (heck, most of the time) my kids surprised me with their earnest, almost dewy-eyed optimism. And I was reminded of what it was like to feel that way. And that, at least where they're concerned, I still do.
So, let's hear that last paragraph one more time. And yes, I do think we ought to cut back to, say, five or six quotes about the critical importance of whatever it is you're talking about. If for no other reason than you've just referenced Thomas Jefferson, St. Thomas Aquinas, Einstein and Kanye West. And only one of those people would be really happy about that.
And yep, definitely the sloth. At least that would be my pick.
Commentary on 10/14/2016