Let's See Where This Goes

When I was 18 I graduated in the top 10% of my class. I don't remember the exact number but I know I was right at the 10% mark. I scored an 800 on my English SAT's (the highest score possible at the time) but I did so poorly on my math that I ended up with an average score overall.

I left for Ohio State one week after I turned 18. This meant it was now legal for me to drink liqueur in WV and 3% beer in Ohio. I quickly became the pipeline for interstate transport of alcoholic beverages for all my friends. Everytime I came home I would go back with a trunkful of spirits - and I was too dumb to make a profit on it! I just did it for the sake of the party.

I quickly discovered I was in trouble scholastically. Problem number one was that I had never had to study for a class in my life - I had a photographic memory at that point. That photographic memory was no good to me because I was too busy having fun to study. You can't memorize it if you don't read it in the first place. Problem number two was the partying. I had never been allowed to go out and get "wild" and I went overboard as so many do. The theme of our dorm suite (12 girls) was "perpetually high".

I realized at the end of the 2nd. quarter I needed to change something. I was on a path to nowhere. I wrote a "persuasion" paper for a professor on "Why I Should Quit College". He called me to the front after he read it and he said, "I thought no one would ever convince me that they needed to quit college...you have done it." He gave me an "A".

So I made plans to transfer to Marshall University (an instate college). Unfortunately my parents didn't understand why I was leaving Ohio State. (I couldn't tell them I was partying their out of state tuition away) They didn't see it as a transfer. They saw it as me quitting school.

I was determined to prove to them that I would start school in the fall. In the meantime I got a job at Burger Chef (again). That was the summer my brother threatened to kill me. I don't mean the usual idle threats of a brother and a sister. I mean a bona fide threat on my life. I went to my parents and I got kicked out because my dad said I was only trying to cause trouble.

It really didn't phase me too much I thought at the time. Looking back I can see it was the beginning of the end. That's another story... (that is actually blogged about somewhere in here already)