In high school…as I was either playing hangman with Steve Pollack while the class read MacBeth or while I did baseball statistics with Scott McCabe while the class read Silas Marner (I can't remember)…we had a visit from the guidance counselor.
He told us that Abraham Lincoln was an idiot. He explained that Abe said you could be anything you wanted to…that you could be all you can be and that you could have it your way.
(later in the semester he also told us that there was a Burger King near where he had basic training)
No, No, No. That wasn’t true, he said. You couldn’t be anything you wanted to be…some of us weren’t college material and we needed to recognize that and make choices that reflected a realistic view of ourselves.
As a side note…he told us that too many students become teachers because they couldn’t think of anything else to do with their lives. (I wonder what Mrs. Buckner (or was it Mrs. Glasser?) thought of that?)
I don’t know why he told us this…perhaps he had a deal with the local trade school for referrals or he had just spent all morning trying to find a chimney sweep.
And as quickly as he arrived he was back out the door.
Now for the Real Country Music lyric of the day…
(the hardest part was deciding what part of this song to include…)
I came crawling home last night, like many nights before:
I finally made it to my feet as she opened up the door.
And she said, "You're not gonna do this anymore."
She said: "I'm gonna' hire a wino to decorate our home,
So you'll feel more at ease here, and you won't have to roam.
We'll take out the dining room table, and put a bar along that wall.
And a neon sign, to point the way, to our bathroom down the hall."
She said: "Just bring your Friday paycheck, and I'll cash them all right here.
And I'll keep on tap - for all your friends, their favorite kinds of beer.
There'll be Monday night football, on T.V. above the bar.
And a pay phone in the hallway, when your friends can't find their car."
Back to the story of the little train that shouldn't even try...
A couple of days later he was back. He apologized for telling us we couldn’t be anything we wanted to be and told me, yes, I could be the next host of Dance Fever.
The only thing you couldn’t be (he didn’t explain this, but it seems obvious) was a guidance counselor who spoke his mind.
