10/2/23
Newsletter #476
The Crack of Dawn
I suppose that I must have taken some sort of intelligence test in 5th grade, and apparently, I scored well. I don’t remember it at all. However, the next thing I knew I was enrolled in a program called Academically Able. I don’t recall being asked if I cared to be involved; I just was. Soon thereafter, I was being taken, along with a nerdy-looking girl I didn’t know, to another nearby school (I can see it in my head, but I don’t recall where it was) to participate in this seemingly new, forward-thinking, program.
When we arrived at this other school, we found about 50 other kids who were mostly older than us. We were given a lengthy questionnaire to find out our interests. Since there wasn’t a single reference to the arts: movies, theater, painting, drawing or literature, I wrote “No” or “Not interested” to every question. Apparently, I was the only academically able oddball to do such a negative thing, and it immediately caused a bit of a stir. While the other 49 kids were allowed to choose classes that represented their various interests, I was taken away to another room. Even though in regular school I was one of the biggest mischief makers, and was constantly in trouble, here at this weirdo school I was already in trouble, and I hadn’t yet done anything.
I was seated in an empty classroom and surrounded and loomed over by four standing teachers. Two men and two women, if I recall correctly, who were undoubtedly well-meaning people. Now, how was it that I had managed to answer “no” or “not interested” to all 50 questions inquiring of my interests and had still ended up here? I said, “Nothing in there interested me.” One of them asked, “Are you interested in anything?” I said, “Yes, movies.” They all looked at each other, then back at me. Another asked, “And what else are you interested in besides movies?” I said, “Nothing else. Just movies.” They looked at each other again, shrugged, then informed me, “We don’t have any classes on movies.” I said, “I like theater, I like reading, and I also like drawing.” They informed me forlornly, “We don’t have any classes on ant of those things, either. But we do have these courses,” and they handed me a list. I scanned it and said, “Nope, I don’t care about any of them.” They went into a mumbled conference amongst themselves, then returned. “What do you want to do? You don’t have to come here.” Except that it eliminated two half-days of school, so unless they threw me out, I was staying. I said, “I’d like to keep coming, what should I do?” They conferred and decided that architecture included some drawing, so that might work, and I agreed.
Immediately, I didn’t care at all about architecture. Since they were all so forward thinking they didn’t mind that I paid absolutely no attention at all. I brought a science fiction book with me and read straight through every class. Came the end of the semester, a final project was due. Every one of these smart kids had beautiful models of cool, contemporary buildings and churches and even whole city blocks. At truly the very last minute, I took two pieces of grey plexiglass from the scrap bin and glued them to the sides of a Cheerios box. Not only could you see the globes of Elmer’s glue through the plexiglass, but you could also plainly see that it was a Cheerios box. The deeply befuddled teacher asked me, “What is this?” I said, “It’s a skyscraper.” Since there were no grades, it didn’t matter anyway.
During the course of that year, my architecture class took a field trip. We went to an office building in nearby Troy. We were ushered into a conference room. Soon thereafter, in came the world-famous architect, I. M. Pei. I just checked the dates. I. M. Pei was born in 1917 (he died in 2019 at the age of 102). I was in 5th grade in 1968, which would’ve made Mr. Pei a young 51 years old. Anyway, he couldn’t have been any nicer or more welcoming to us architectural students. He took us around his offices and showed us cool models of fabulous buildings he was building all over the world. This was how I incongruously met I. M. Pei. Stranger still to me was that he lived and worked in Troy, Michigan.
In 1981 I. M. Pei was commissioned to build a centerpiece for the Louvre Museum in Paris. Not a bad gig.
OK, but wait. So, then what did these dumb, though good-hearted, schmucks at Academically Able do? They brought me back for 6th grade, too, yet still had not bothered to introduce any classes about movies, theater, drawing or literature. This year I was put into classes about electronics. I’m proud to say that I did absolutely the same thing as last year’s architecture courses. I read Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Ellison, etc. And when, just like the previous class, the end of the semester came up we were supposed to hand in a final project. Once again, all of these academically able students went to a lot of trouble and built all sorts of cool electronic gadgets. I, on the other hand, had done nothing. I think I finished Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.
Just like the year before, I tried to throw something together at the very last minute. In the storeroom they had a children’s boxed set of the most basic put-together crystal radio, for kids 12 and under, that I had spotted weeks before. It’s just like the pictured item, except that I had to assemble the radio, which was an exposed circuit board. But it was designed to be so simple a child could do it.
On the day the project had to be turned in, I finally sat down to assemble this rudimentary crystal radio for kids. I peeled off the cellophane from the sealed box, removed all the parts, opened the instructions, and set to work.
The project had to be in by the end of the day. I felt that I had left myself amble time, maybe three hours. Well, in three hours I wasn’t even close. I had no idea what I was doing. Finally, the class was about to end, and the kindly teacher encouraged me to give my radio a try in front of the class. Well, sure, what the hell. I didn’t have an earphone, I had a little speaker. The two power wires running to the circuit board had alligator clips to be attached to a dry cell battery. As 20 eager, academically able students gave me their undivided attention, I connected the clips the battery and nothing. I fiddled with some wires and connections, and nothing. The friendly teacher said, “Why don’t you take it over there and give it a bit more work.” I did as I was told. The rest of the class finished their end of semester business, then they came back to me. I reconnected it a few more times, but it didn’t work. Kids of any ages? Fuck you.
I can’t even believe it’s another day.