Here's something you won't want to buy. A dealer on eBay is selling a copy of my high school yearbook. What's more, he's making a fuss about it being mine, even though I think there are several (now) more famous students in there.
No, I won't be bidding. I have one…filled with autographs from my classmates. About every ten years, I flip through it…and while I have fond memories of certain friends, I really didn't like high school. I had long since decided what I wanted to do with my life. I think I knew when I was ten. From that moment on, I was acutely aware of how irrelevant most of what I was learning in school was to what I wanted to do. The most valuable class I took there or in junior high was probably Typing.
But I had to take a lot of other stuff that has never mattered. For instance, I had to learn how to balance a Redox Equation in Chemistry…something I managed to do without ever quite learning what a Redox Equation was or why they had to be balanced. What's more, I learned what I learned in "Final Exam Mode," which means that after you commit it to paper for the final exam, it's instantly and forever erased from your head…like someone picked up the film on one of those Magic Slates we all had when I was eight. (The analogy today would be to flushing the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop.)
So I couldn't wait to get out of high school and I only look back to remind myself that the Good Ol' Days weren't all that good and things got better as soon as I put them behind me. A week after graduation, I made my first real sale as a professional writer — a real sale meaning I submitted something to a stranger and he bought it and paid me real money. That was the moment I decided the preface was over and my life was finally beginning.
The seller of my yearbook notes that there is but one photo of me in there. This is because I was a notorious non-participant in high school. I wasn't interested in inside-the-classroom activities, let alone outside-the-classroom endeavors. I did briefly let myself get drafted into serving in Student Government, a silly faux-democratic organization that tried to act like the United States Government…which is to say it got nothing done. I sat there for several long meetings while representatives debated a proposal to raise money to buy paint and then to solicit volunteers to come to the campus some weekend and paint all the trashcans.
I got so annoyed with the process that I introduced a proposal to abolish Student Government. I insisted I was not kidding and that I expected my proposal to be voted upon with the same seriousness as the one about painting the trashcans. A student who served as President sighed and granted my demand, and this led to several more meetings and much debate before we came to the conclusion that Student Government did not have the power to abolish Student Government. I'm not even sure we had the power to paint the trashcans but anyway, that's when I got out.
The seller notes "Mark's listed in the Speech Club Photo but looks like he was a No Show." I think that's because I never signed up for the Speech Club and didn't know until I got the yearbook that I was considered a member. I'm not even sure I knew there was a Speech Club before that.
Anyway, I thought I'd tell you the story of the one contribution I made to this yearbook. I didn't work on its staff but I had a good relationship with an art teacher named Mr. Nikirk who supervised its assembly. Mr. Nikirk had wanted to be a professional cartoonist at some past point in his life and we talked often about that profession and how hard it was (he said) to break into it.
He got into a certain amount of trouble over this yearbook because costs got out of hand. When it went off to press, the printing company began sending back little notes that certain things would incur extra charges — this would cost more or that would cost more, etc. The final damages came to around $500 more than expected and while Mr. Nikirk wasn't on the hook for that money — the school was and would have to take it out of something else — he had a lot of administrative-type people mad at him. One of his extravagances had been to have an aerial photo taken of the campus — a photo that, as you can see in the pic below, ran as the endpapers in the book.
When I got my copy of the yearbook, I noticed something. I was far from the first person on campus to see the yearbook but I was the first person to point this out. I went to Mr. Nikirk and knowing of his overcharge problem, I suggested he demand at least a bill reduction from the printers. "For what?" he asked. I told him, "For printing the big aerial photo backwards."
He grabbed the book I was holding out of my mitts and stared at the endpapers. With his finger, he tried to trace the route from the Teachers' Parking Lot to his classroom. It would not trace.
Sure enough: The photo was flipped over, printed mirror-image. East was West and West was East.
He dashed to the nearest phone, which was in the Teacher's Lounge. I tagged along to eavesdrop (with his permission) as he called the printers and told them of the error. They replied that it was his fault as he'd approved the proofs they'd sent over of the book. And he had…but there was a look of pure triumph on his face as he reminded them that the proofs had not included the endpapers. They, therefore, were responsible.
Over the next day or three, much arguing ensued along with threats of non-payment and legal action. The school finally told the printer that they were going to have the students all turn in their yearbooks and the lot of them would be shipped back. Uni High was rejecting the print job and it expected the books to be reprinted with the endpapers corrected. The printers, who stood to lose many thousands of dollars if they had to do that, offered to knock $1000 off the bill if the school would accept the books "as is." The school agreed…and that's how my high school yearbook not only didn't lose money but actually turned a nice profit.
It's also how we wound up with an apt metaphor in its endpapers. That school really was a backward place to get an education.