Tom’s School Reading and Reading for Enjoyment

Throughout high school, Tom was assigned books to read. Often he would have preferred to read an assigned book within a few days; however the teachers parceled out pages and then quizzed on those pages. Completing the book ahead of schedule would have meant poor performance on the frequent quizzes, which often asked questions like what was a character wearing or eating (as if that had much relevance to the overall story).

Most of the assigned reading was melancholy. The themes usually centered on death and misery instead of life and joy. Tom recalls reading the following books in high school:

• Ethan Frome (about attempted collaborative suicide);
• A Separate Peace (about high school friends and one becoming jealous to the point of trying to kill his friend);
• The Great Gatsby (about a rich man who pines for a shallow woman which ends up causing him to be murdered);
• Jane Eyre (about an unattractive British woman who is to marry her older boss until she learns he is already married to a nut);
• The Wide Sargasso Sea (about the life of the nut in Jane Eyre before she marries the rich British dude);
• To Kill a Mockingbird (about racism which kills an innocent black man);
• The Red Badge of Courage (about death and dying during the Civil War)
• The Good Earth (about a newer Chinese generation taking over and placing the preceding generation in a corner with opium).

Tom needed other books to read in order to keep him reading. The school books alone would have destroyed all desire to read in the teenager. So, Tom sought out adventure stories including books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, et al), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World, Sherlock Holmes), Jack London (White Fang, Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf), and other early Twentieth Century novelists. These books also dealt with themes like death, but in a way that was positive, life reaffirming, and adventurous. Like many other teenagers, he also enjoyed comic books. These books gave Tom a desire to discover, learn, travel, and be something, whereas the assigned school books caused him to wonder what the purpose of life was and whether life is worth living when there can be so much tragedy and horror.

As an adult, Thomas still does not know why the school district assigned the reading it did when thousands of other books with more engaging themes could have been on the reading list. He figures that the books would not survive as literature if not foisted upon young minds whose world views would thereafter be affected. He wonders if the reason so few adults read books after graduation has anything to do with the reading that had been required.

Teen-aged years were traumatic enough. After all, teenagers deal with wanting to be free while restricted by parents, school, and other authority. Teenagers deal with new emotions that are stronger than at any other time in life. Why then should the school force such sad literature upon teenagers already dealing with turbulent, troubling times?

Tom and the Sex-crazed High School Teachers

Special Sex Ed

Ms. Groo was a chubby special education teacher in her thirties when Tom was in high school. Most of the 2000 pupils on campus knew her simply because she taught the “retards,” as the crasser kids called them. Tom befriended a couple of these lower IQed students. He would see them walking home from school alone and would pull up along side them on his bicycle and walk and talk for a while. Some of those kids had interesting views of the world and some came from very strange families.

Anyway, back to Ms. Groo. Tom knew very little about her, but admired a teacher that would spend her day trying to drill life skills into students who required extreme patience. That is until one day--she wasn't at the school anymore. Tom soon learned that she had been fired from the school district for allegedly having sex with one of her special students.

Arrogant Charisma

The high school had a couple of theater teachers while Tom attended. One of them was Mr. Showmaker, a thirty-year old, clean cut, well-built man who had acted in some television prior to becoming a schoolteacher. He was handsome and several of the girls giggled when they gossiped about him.

Mr. Showmaker took charge of an after school martial arts club for students to work out and train with him. Tom decided to join. The club was supposed to be a place where martial arts students of different disciplines could show each other moves. Mr. Showmaker quickly changed that and made it more into a showcase for his abilities. One day, Mr. Showmaker, decked out in his karate gi, told the club members that he was very annoyed that a woman he knew who was a black belt had let her boyfriend beat her because she did not have the will to fight.

“Having a belt will do you no good if you do not know how to face a combative situation,” he said, “So, I’m going to have each of you spar with me, and you’ll learn. I don’t want anyone that I train with to be like that black belt woman.”

Tom did not like this. He came to martial arts club because he thought that the Oriental art was fascinating, not because he wanted to fight with a teacher. Tom and one of his friends often sparred for sport in his friend's back yard on a mat made out of carpets. Tom had also fought plenty of bullies throughout his public school days and it seemed to him that Showmaker was just trying to show off. Tom knew it was supposed to be only a sparring match, but he knew that he would very likely injure Showmaker in the process, and perhaps Showmaker, who was much stronger and more skilled, would then thrash him. Showmaker had the air of someone you did not mess with. An assault on his ego could result in physical harm. Tom regretted joining the club and this would be the last day he would go. He even considered leaving then and there.

Tom had never had Showmaker as a teacher, but his parents had run into him once while at the school for an Orchestra concert that Tom had performed in on the theater stage. Showmaker talked to Tom’s prim and proper mother about something, and almost said the word “sh*t,” but caught himself at the last minute. Tom had been standing nearby and his mother later commented on this.

“Mr. Showmaker almost said a bad word,” she said, “I could tell.”

Now, as Tom sat awaiting his turn to spar with the man, he recalled this conversation. It seemed to 16-year-old Tom that Showmaker had a hard time controlling himself. He recalled another time when Mr. Showmaker and Tom’s Orchestra teacher, Mr. Wirrin, started yelling at each other during class. Mr. Showmaker went into the room where the Orchestra was rehearsing and started complaining that Mr. Wirrin had left chairs and stands on Showmaker's stage after a rehearsal. He was very rude to Mr. Wirrin in front of Mr. Wirrin’s students. When he left the classroom, Mr. Wirrin turned to his Orchestra students and shook his head, “What a jerk,” he mumbled.

So, Tom sparred, or rather he blocked everything that Showmaker threw and decided to be defensive rather than aggressive. Often when he fought bullies, Tom liked to wear them down by defending. Many bullies had more powerful muscles that could seriously injure Tom if fists landed on his face, but Tom had endurance on his side and could literally be the last one able to stand. Unlike many bullies, Tom had extensive martial arts training both from classes and from drill instruction from his ex marine father. Over and over again, bullies would throw all of their conviction into the first few moments but rarely had the stamina or patience to beat someone who cooly defended and stuck only when opportunity presented. Mr. Showmaker criticized Tom for not now engaging him.

“You can’t be afraid to hit me. Don’t be like that woman and just stand there and take it.”

Tom replied, “That friend of yours, she survived, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I intend to survive too. I may not have struck you, but none of your strikes are getting me.” Tom knew that Showmaker was just waiting for Tom to throw a punch that would end him in an arm bar on the ground, a move that would have made the other’s awe at Showmaker’s prowess. Tom had just watched Showmaker throw one of the other club members to the ground moments before.

When Showmaker realized that sparring scrawny Tom was not going to end in his glory, he told Tom to take a seat so he could then demonstrate some moves.

Tom did not go back to the club. He believed that the teacher had a streak of narcissism in him that was difficult to respect. Several months later, he went to see the student stage production that Showmaker had worked on with his students. The main star, a sixteen-year-old, did not perform that evening. An ambulance came to the school and she was taken away. With that distraction, the play was awful. Tom learned the next day that she had had a nervous breakdown because Showmaker had allegedly been having sex with her, and that, coupled with her pending debut in front of her parents and classmates, had been too much for her to handle that night. Showmaker was forced to resign in disgrace shortly thereafter.

No Law School for You!

Thomas had just finished his Real Estate degree cum laude from the University of Las Vegas, Nevada in the year 2000 and considered attending law school. He filed an application to only one place, William S. Boyd, which was Nevada’s new and only law school. As part of the application process, he had to get a certified copy of his high school transcript. “No problem,” he thought, “I still live with my parents near the school. I’ll just stop in.”

And so, Thomas, a college graduate, walked into the high school where he had collected so many unpleasant memories. He went into the administration office and recalled several uncomfortable situations. First, he recalled the time he locked his bicycle to a secretary’s desk. Then he looked at the floor where a punk who had spit in his face fell to his knees begging for forgiveness. Around the corner, he and his parents had complained about the poor educatory skills of one of the science teachers. And, just beyond that, was the spot he and his parents told a counselor that his younger brother had died the night before in a hiking accident. Thomas strode to the person in charge of records while trying to clear his mind of all the negativity.

“So you want to go to law school?”

“No not really, that’s why I am applying.”

“Well, here is your transcript.” Her eyes almost bulged at all the tents she saw on the papers.

“What do these pointy letters mean?” she asked.

“Oh, those are As.”

“I notice that you have more credits than you needed. Wait, wait a second…you are missing a half a credit of physical education.”

Thomas looked at her. He recalled taking one year of ROTC, which fulfilled one PE credit. Then, he remembered running on the cross-country team “Kicking Asphalt” for a semester to fill more PE credits.

“But you only took cross-country for one semester, not two,” was the bureaucratic response.

“Let me get this straight. I did more exercise running cross country for a semester than every student that took PE for two years and you’re saying I’m a half credit short?”

“Looks that way.” Thomas couldn’t tell if she was teasing him for his prior sarcasm.

“You are also telling me that I received a diploma from this school and another diploma from UNLV but will now have to take a semester of PE because I was a credit short?” Thomas grinned ironically.

The bureaucrat did not say anything. She tilted her head slightly, as if wondering what this future lawyer would say next.

Thomas cleared his throat, “Ok, does the transcript say that I lettered in Chess, one of my extracurricular activities. You know, it’s that strategy game where you physically move objects around. I think I used quite a few calories there. That club ought to count for a credit too. Oh, and I was in speech and debate club as well. My mouth got quite a work out there and that ought to count for another credit. I was also in Orchestra for four years, lots of arm swinging and finger moving involved. Also, I rode a bicycle to school and home every day, four miles, with a burden. I think that made me more physically active than most. Seems to me that that transcript is wrong and I should have a surplus of PE credits.”

The bureaucrat finally cracked a smile as she turned away, “You’ll be alright.”

Tom Learns about Knives and Orchestra Teachers

Tom played the violin in school for seven years, sixth through twelfth grade. During that time, he had four different Orchestra teachers. His first was a twenty-something year old, short man, of Swiss descent teaching at a sixth grade center. The second Orchestra teacher was a young woman of Irish descent who taught seventh grade.

His third was an old man of Scottish descent who taught Tom in eighth and ninth grade before retiring, named Mr. Abbotson. And the fourth was a forty-something year old African American who took over from Mr. Abbotson, named Mr. Wirrin. The best of the four was Mr. Abbotson who looked liked a composer or conductor of old. He always wore a bow tie and a Hanna hat when outside to cover his bald head. The worst teacher was the jazz playing bassist Mr. Wirrin, who could play a mean bass but couldn't teach worth a darn. These last two are worth discussing in more detail.

The old Scott played the piano and cello expertly, but learned proficiency on all of the instruments. When the eighth grade Orchestra students went on a bus trip to Disneyland, Mr. Abbotson made sure that the trip was full of music. He had them perform at a junior high along the way and then again in Disneyland’s orchestral studio, playing a sound track for an animated movie. He had them all go see The Phantom of the Opera in the evening.

At night, when all of the students were supposed to sleep in their shared hotel rooms, the old man sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot, and stared up at all the rooms to let the kids know he was watching and they had better behave. He was probably asleep, but to Tom and the others, his presence outside meant they would be caught if they attempted leaving their rooms. Tom thought it was a little creepy seeing Mr. Abbotson in his bow tie, hat, and glasses--unmoving, like a vampire waiting for activity upon which to pounce.

Mr. Abbotson would sometimes tell stories in class, but he would make sure that most of the time was spent playing music. One story he told involved the progress on his home he had bought and all of the governmental problems he was running into to get certain additions and landscaping approved by Clark County. Tom had no idea that Mr. Abbotson was talking about a home around the corner from where Tom lived, until sometime later when he saw his aged teacher taking a routine walk around the hood.

When Abbotson retired from the Clark County School District after many decades of teaching, he held private lessons in his home and Tom would go every week to improve his violin skills. Mr. Abbotson had installed a grand piano in his living room and would sometimes invite neighbors over to perform for them. A couple years after Tom graduated high school, Mr. Abbotson decided to move to another State to be close to his grandchildren. Tom, a real estate major in college, purchased the home from his old high school teacher and private violin tutor. Years later, Tom visited the old man. He was still giving private lessons and he gave daily performances on a grand piano in Nordstrom’s.

Mr. Wirrin, on the other hand, was a completely different teacher. Tom had this Orchestra teacher for three years, the longest of all four. Looking back, Tom thinks he wasted a lot of time taking Orchestra those last three years. Mr. Wirrin spent most of the class hour every day complaining about how the students did not practice enough at home. He said that they would not get a superior rating at the yearly inter-school competition if they did not. He told the students that if they did not take Orchestra seriously, the program would be in jeopardy because sports was considered by school officials to be more important to fund than music programs.

Tom would often wonder why the class time was wasted. The students could have been practicing instead of listening to Mr. Wirrin, who seemed to like to hear himself speak even though his communication skills were severely lacking. Wirrin would pepper his monologues with “ums” and “uhs.” At concerts, when he introduced a piece the orchestra would play, he sounded very nervous and the “ums” and “uhs” only increased in incidence. Tom would cringe in discomfort as he considered what the audience must think.

When Mr. Wirrin took the students on bus trips to Magic Mountain, or other parks in California, as was the yearly tradition, he took no extra effort to make the trips memorable. There were no stops along the way to play with other schools. The only stops were in Barstow for lunch and several stops so the chaperons and bus driver could smoke. Instruments were left at home. At night, Wirrin slept in his own room and wore sound-canceling headphones so he would not be disturbed.

On one of the trips to California, when Tom was eighteen and a senior, Tom carried his Swiss army knife, an heirloom bespeaking his Swiss ancestry. On the bus, one of the other students was having difficulty opening a package of junk food and Tom assisted with his pocketknife. A chaperoning parent, upon sight of the knife, acted hysterically and pointed it out to Wirrin, who confiscated it.

“I’m surprised that you would break the rules,” he scolded Tom. “I could keep you from going into the park tomorrow for bringing this knife.”

“But I am an adult, outside of school, on a weekend. We are not even taking a school bus,” Tom explained, “What’s wrong with me bringing a tool with me? We use knives all the time to eat. Students were using butter knives and steak knives at lunch in Barstow.”

“That’s different,” Wirrin said, without explaining why. “I’m going to have a word with your father when we get back. This is a very serious thing you did. I thought you had more sense and were more responsible than this. You know the younger students see you as an example.”

If he had not lost respect for Mr. Wirrin in the two and a half years prior, Tom had now lost every vestige of it. Tom considered dropping out of Orchestra for the remainder of the year and taking another class instead. Other students had done it, but Tom ultimately wanted to see things through, even if it was uncomfortable.

That night in his hotel room, Mr. Wirrin wore his noise-canceling headphones, which he had bragged about to some of the parents on the bus. He was oblivious to the shenanigans going on throughout the hotel by high school students. A hotel window was broken. Students that wanted to sleep were harassed by those that did not. The hotel was alive with teenagers most of the night. Boys were going to girls' rooms; girls were going to boys'.

Tom thought that he could have saved the money on his hotel room and slept better in a lawn chair. His roommates were not letting him sleep as they called other students on the hotel phones, called each other names involving homosexuality because four were supposed to share two beds, etc. Tom almost hit one of the squirly boys in the face to get him to shut his obnoxious hole, but thought better of it and sat out the night in a chair.

Upon returning to Las Vegas, Mr. Wirrin sought out Tom’s father’s car and strode over to the driver’s side. Tom’s former Marine father, Noland, looked sternly out of his window at Mr. Wirrin as Tom put his luggage in the trunk.

“Your son did a very dangerous thing which is against the school rules. He was caught with a knife on the bus. I have it here and wanted to give it to you personally. Tom is going to graduate soon, so I will not raise this with the dean. You better make sure he does not bring it to school.”

To Mr. Wirrin's chagrin, Nol handed the knife to Tom.

On the ride home, Nol looked over at his son and grinned. “It’s a good thing he didn’t know about this,” Nol pulled out and showed the handgun that he had concealed illegally in his palm beside his seat for protection.

The neighborhood around the school was getting worse and worse, after all.

Tommy Should Be Held Back in First Grade

Tommy’s parents kept him home, while others his age attended Kindergarten. They taught him the alphabet and numbers. The only interaction he had with other children, were his two younger brothers. Tommy’s parents did not believe in television in the home, so he did not see Sesame Street or cartoons. Instead, they took him to work with them and explored the outdoors for recreation.

When he finally went to first grade in 1983, he was somewhat bewildered. He did what he thought he was supposed to do. He never raised his hand for permission to get a drink of water; he simply went.

This was forbidden.

From an early age, school taught children to ask permission and submit to authority. Tommy was a year late in this most important aspect of public education. His reluctance to recognize authority would follow him throughout life.

He was obedient when instructed in a course of action, but in the absence of instruction, he did his own thing. The other children, who had shared Kindergarten and television experiences, played together. Tommy played alone. The teacher observed Tommy’s odd, non-conformist behavior.

She must call his parents.

At the parent/teacher conference, the teacher learned that Tommy had not gone to Kindergarten. “If I had known that, I would not have accepted him in my class,” she said, “I think he will have to be held back a grade.”

“Absolutely not,” Tommy’s parents said, “He just has to get used to school.”

Tommy caught his stride in fourth grade. Thereafter, he was in the top one percent of his class, eventually graduating cum laude from UNLV, and then law school.

Thomas uses his non-conformism to defend clients who have not conformed to the expectations of State authority. His innocent clients often face severe punishment. The press libels, vilifies, and implies guilt, whenever the police or prosecutors serve them up a scandalous story. Without the aid of their attorney, they would have no chance against a money-based justice system.

Thomas muses, “If my parents had agreed to hold me back in first grade, I would have remained behind my class and probably never have felt the desire to excel. The school system tried to break my individuality, but my parents did not let it. Now I try to prevent the cold bureaucratic system from breaking others. Life is too short to live only for the expectations of others. Presumption of innocence is hard to maintain for clients when many believe that suspicion equals guilt. Most people think a non-conformist is guilty.”

John Galt should have been a criminal defense lawyer.