shucks

I could have gone to Yale

     I was only short in a couple of areas.
     First, my parents didn't have enough money to make charitable donations to admissions officers, or to convince a coach I was a member of the rowing club.
     Second, my parents did not pay someone $15,000 to take my ACT in high school.
     You may remember the ACT.  American College Testing, if I recall.  You either took the ACT or the SAT, depending on the school of your dreams.
     I think the perfect score was 36, and I came close....only 15 points off.  If someone had taken the test for me, they could have done better.  Hell, a trained chimpanzee might have done better.
     I may be a prime example of wasted opportunity. 
     I can't swim.  But in my high school, we had a pool and the fourth quarter was mandatory swimming class.
     You could only get out of it if you had an open sore or a TB test.   I spent the last 9 weeks of every school year with a bandage on my arm, telling the coach that I had a TB test and could not go in the water.
     One year I must have lost the bandage, because  I remember getting in the water and swimming, albeit rather clumsily, one length of the pool.  After that I got another TB test.
     Not to be perverted or anything, but the guys did not wear swim suits!       Seriously!  They would put 25 completely naked hormone ravaged boys in a swimming pool with no thought of what could happen.  Self esteem was not the only thing that shriveled during gym class.
     The girls had suits.  They swam in the morning.  They boys would have their swim classes in the afternoon.
     As someone with a TB test, I did not have to shower before swimming.  I just had to take off my shoes and socks and walk through the disinfectant stew to cleanse my fee before taking a seat on a bench and watching all my naked classmates frolic in the water.
     Not showering allowed me to be one of the first people into the pool area.
      I will never forget the beautiful scene....calm water, covered by a coating of slime and hair only disturbed by the cannonballing of fellow classmates with nicknames like, Stumpy, Shorty, Peewee, Hairy, How Cow! and others I made up during my time on the bench.
     I bet at Yale I would have learned to swim.....the price of being poor, I guess.
Peace and Love