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You are here: Home / Life / Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years

Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years

by jlcollinsnh 8 Comments

“If you reach for a star you might not get one,

But you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”

Leo Burnett

Stuff I’ve failed at:  the early years

Grammar School. 

I was a miserable kid.  In every sense of the word.  The fact that the nuns kept referring to all the bad stuff being engraved into my “PERMENTANT RECORD” let me know I was doomed.  I failed every class.  Except PE one year when I got the lowest possible passing grade.

Fortunately no one cared so they kept passing me along.  It would be embarrassing to still be trying to get thru 2nd grade.

God knows what they would have diagnosed me with had they been doing that back in the day.  I’d be in a padded room somewhere.

I did have one major victory.  In the middle of fifth grade in the middle of the school day I gathered up all my belongings from inside the little desk with the flip-up wooden lid and went home.  My parents were not pleased.

 

I announced I was never going back.  I was, what, 9 or 10?  But I made it stick.  They put me in the local public school.  That wasn’t better but at least it took the kids a while to figure out they could pick on me.

I let kids pick on me.

I was always a big kid.  That should have been an advantage, but in a perverse way it wasn’t.  I was afraid to fight and once the other kids figured that out, well it was very ugly.  They could pick on this big kid, look tough and get away with it.  Very ugly.

When I switched schools in the middle of the fifth grade that gave me a fresh start.  By the time those kids figured out this big guy was actually an attractive target we were on to Junior High and another fresh start.

By then, I was learning to give off a different vibe and was mostly left alone.  I had made the big breakthrough to simply being friendless.  I was thrilled with the progress.

But then I went to a tough high school.  “Vibes” weren’t going to cut it. I was terrified.  I needed a plan.

I went out for the football team.  That helped.  I was big and stronger than I knew.

But a few weeks in, at the beginning of the last class of the day, History, Billy B grabbed me from behind.  He lifted me into the air.  He was a big kid.  On the football team.  One of the major school bullies.  He sensed weakness.

In a brief moment of clarity I knew what I did next would determine if I’d be left alone for the next four years or tormented relentlessly.  Every instinct was driven by fear and screaming at me to just give in.  But after eight years of torture I knew I’d rather die than endure four more.  How could poor Billy know?

I dropped my books and drove both my elbows into his ribcage as hard as I could.  He dropped me.  The bell rang.  He said:  “After school, you’re dead.”

I sat in the first seat of the row, Billy was two seats back.  In forty minutes I’d be beaten to death.  My insides were turning to jelly.  Half way thru the class Billy leaned forward and gently tapped my shoulder.

“Hey Collins,” he said, “let’s just forget about it.”

I was stunned.  I wanted to cry out in relief.  I wanted to thank him profusely.  I wanted to praise heaven for my salvation.  Fortunately I did none of those things.

Instead I said, “OK, I’ll let it go this time.”  I may have been weak kneed but I wasn’t entirely stupid.

If I’ve prattled on here a bit, forgive me.  This was a defining moment.  My life turned on it.  I’ve thought about it deeply.  It wasn’t until years later it occurred to me what Billy must have been thinking.

His bully instincts had correctly sensed I was a victim.  Of course he was right.  But then, for reasons he couldn’t possibly understand (nor did I), for one brief shinning moment I would not be bullied.  I had no experience fighting and therefore no sense of proportion.  Looking back I likely broke his ribs.

So now he is in pain and has promised to fight this kid he doesn’t know and who is every bit as big as he.  It must have seemed a very dangerous mistake.

That one moment made my reputation and it carried me thru all four years.  I’d bested the school bully.  I must be a tough kid.  All in a single moment.

Wished I figured that out in first grade.

Shop class.

In 7th or 8th grade we had to take shop class.  Not sure if they still do this or not but it is where they taught, or in my case tried to teach, how to work with your hands.

For one project we had to build a wooden lamp and wire it.  I got mine cobbled together and took it home to my dad and begged him wire it for me.  He was good at that stuff.  I could have just as likely built the Space Shuttle.   Must skip a generation.

On the final day the shop teacher walked around evaluating and grading our projects.  Most of those kids had produced works of art.  He was lavish in his praise. When he got to mine he stared in disbelief.

 

this is the kind of lamp the other kids made

“Collins,” he said, “this is truly terrible.  I’m giving you an ‘F’ unless it actually works.  Then you’ll get a ‘D’.”

It did.  Thanks, Dad.

I got fired from my very first job. 

Besides selling flyswatters door-to-door and picking up pop bottles from the side of the road for the deposit, my very first job was in an ice cream store.  Homer hired me to scoop ice cream and serve customers.  Seems my scoops were too generous.  I like ice cream.

So he put me to work in the back scrubbing out the huge metal containers he made the ice cream in.  I got them all done, a task for Hercules.  Like cleaning out the stables.

When I left for two weeks to go to Mexico (see Languages below) he asked me to bring him back a sombrero.  I found one in the market.  Huge, awkward gaudy thing to travel with.  But I faithfully brought it back and gave it to him.  He thanked me.  Said it was perfect.

Then he fired me.  I was 14.

Stock Clerk.

The day I turned 16 I went to the Jewel Food Store and applied for a job.  They paid $2.40 per hour but you had to be 16 to work there.  I was making $1.35 at the San Pedro Restaurant as a busboy/dishwasher.

Jewel started me as a bagger and, boy howdy, I was good!  Fast, polite; bread and eggs always on top.  After a few months they promoted me to Stock Clerk with a hefty raise to $2.70.

Boy howdy, was I bad.  S-L-O-W when the key to the job was getting those cans and boxes up on the shelves fast and looking good.  Never figured out why I couldn’t do this.  I was lighting fast as a bagger.  For whatever reason, I can’t stock shelves.  Well I can, but you have to be very patient.

In a rare case of insightful management and after a year or so of embarrassing myself, they transferred me to the produce section.  I was great at produce!  Nobody could unload the watermelon truck or trim the lettuce faster or better.

Languages.

I admire multilingual people.  I always wanted to be one. Some of my best friends are.  My wife speaks English, Swahili and Kokonin.  My daughter speaks English and French.

I speak a little English, and I  failed French in college.  I still remember the beautiful girl who tutored me into a “D” so I could fulfill the language requirement and graduate.

 

not my actual French tutor

 “You really need to learn at least a little of this,” she said.

“I don’t want to learn it,” I said.  “Right now every thing you say sounds like ‘I love you.’”  She didn’t.

I blame Brother Bernard.

Mr. Thomson, who looked just like Clark Kent in the 1950s Superman serial and was married to a drop dead gorgeous Latina, taught freshman Spanish at St. George High School.  He even took a bunch of us delinquents to Mexico for a class trip.  Three days by bus from Chicago.  I loved it.  Loved him.  Loved the class.  Loved learning Spanish.  Lusted after his wife.

I couldn’t wait for sophomore year.  But I got Brother Bernard and that was the end of languages for me.  Out bled the joy and interest.  It’s all his fault.  Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, let this be a lesson, kids.  Don’t let anybody derail your ambitions.  Be like me and do it on your own.

Grammar.  Like that in the title of this post.  Mother is rolling in her grave….

OK that’s enough of this for now.  I’ll do:

Stuff I’ve Failed at:  the later years

some other time.

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Filed Under: Life

« Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
Chainsaws, Elm Trees and paying for College »

Comments

  1. Trish Rempen says

    June 28, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    Those were words of encouragement! you’ve come a long way, baby!
    Very funny, by the way. A story like that makes the rest of us think maybe we did something right along the way, if this guy can screw up so much – and turn out okay.

    Reply
  2. femmefrugality says

    January 31, 2012 at 4:55 pm

    Haha love it. I had similar shop class experiences. Not as much was expected out of me because I was a girl, though. By the time I got to high school they expanded it to design and engineering, which I did much better at.

    Your boss was a jerk. I would have taken the sombrero back.

    I love languages. I think they’re so important to learn, but oddly difficult to learn in our country. Spanish is stepping up, but aside from that the whole sea to shining sea thing really doesn’t allow for us to be exposed to much. Or have an absolute necessity for us, forcing us to do it even if we hate it. (Did I mention I dodged taking physics because I knew I’d be bad at it????….)

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      January 31, 2012 at 5:10 pm

      thanks FF, this is all pretty funny to me now, but it was painful at the time.

      the language thing is the one I really regret. we spent the summer in Ecuador and engaged a wonderful Spanish tutor. I was very pleased with my progress.

      She came and spent and week with us here in NH in October and we’ll be traveling with her to Peru and Bolivia, two countries she knows very well. Hopefully, that will her another big step forward.

      finally learning a language is one of my current goals and who knows, maybe once I’m comfortable with Spanish I try another. I’ll be multi-lingual yet! Que bueno!

      Reply
  3. Kyle Buxton says

    May 26, 2017 at 11:58 pm

    Great story telling. Loved all of it.. .one small thing: you may have spelled Grammar wrong. It is correct in the title (grammar) but incorrect at the end of the post (grammer)…for what it’s worth. Love your site and have just subscribed to email updates. Thanks for the wisdom and experience!

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      May 27, 2017 at 1:40 pm

      Thanks Kyle!

      And thanks for the spelling correction. Done.

      You also got me rereading this post after many years and I found a couple of other small things to correct.

      Glad to see it is still finding readers!

      Reply
  4. Big Joe says

    December 24, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    This is one of the best articles on the whole website. Thank you for the perspective. We have a 10 year old daughter who brought home an F on her report card. It’s easy to make too big of a deal out of it.
    Also thank you so much for the great content on this website. I found the stock series through MMM and read the whole series in one sitting. I’ve been hooked ever since. I’m too cheap to buy the book for myself, but bought it for a friend for Christmas.
    Thank you for making sound investment advice so accessible to normal people.

    Merry Christmas!c

    Reply
    • jlcollinsnh says

      December 24, 2017 at 2:03 pm

      Thanks Joe…

      …it is certainly one of the oldest. Glad you found it useful. I had planned a part two and, obviously, never got around to it.

      I’d be too cheap to buy the book, too. Hit your library up for it. 🙂

      Hope your firend enjoys it.

      Merry Christmas to you and yours!

      Reply
  5. Steve says

    June 16, 2020 at 1:50 pm

    Yeah, I “flunked” the 2nd grade in a one-room country school in northern Wisconsin, and never forgot it. Because I thought I was a tard, I never tried from then on through HS. I did graduate HS and I got a high enough score on the ACT entrance exam I was admitted on academic probation at the nearest state college. But after a year, I dropped out of college and enlisted in the marines during the hight of Vietnam. This is just the first part of many mistakes and failings before I finally got it mostly correct, college, life long marriage, teaching career, and the investment process without those expensive advisers, in the ripe young age of my 50s.

    Reply

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      • Case Study #3: Let's get Tom to Latin America!
      • The Stock Series gets its own page
    • ► September (2)
      • Case Study #2: Joe -- off to a fast start!
      • Chautauqua 2013: A Week of Dreams
    • ► August (1)
      • Closing up shop plus an opening at Chautauqua, my new podcast, phone, book and other random cool stuff
    • ► July (1)
      • They Will Kill You For Your Shoes!
    • ► June (4)
      • Stocks -- Part VIII-b: Should you avoid your company's 401k?
      • Shilpan's Seven Habits to Live More with Less
      • Stocks -- Part XIX: How to think about money
      • My path for my kid -- the first 10 years
    • ► May (5)
      • Why your house is a terrible investment
      • Stocks — Part XVIII: Investing in a raging bull
      • Dining with the Ghosts of Sarah Bernhardt and Alfons Mucha
      • How we finally got the house sold
      • Stocks — Part XVII: What if you can't buy VTSAX? Or even Vanguard?
    • ► April (4)
      • Greetings from Prague & a computer question
      • Swimming with Tigers, a 2nd chance on the Chautauqua, a financial article gets it wrong and I'm off to Prague
      • Storage, Moving and Movers
      • Homeless, and a bit on the strategy of dollar cost averaging
    • ► March (4)
      • Wild Turkeys, Motorcycles, Dining Room Sets & Greed
      • Roots v. Wings: considering home ownership
      • How about that stock market?!
      • The Blog has New Clothes
    • ► February (5)
      • Meet Mr. Money Mustache, JD Roth, Cheryl Reed & me for a Chautauqua in Ecuador
      • High School Poetry, Carnival, cool ads and random pictures that caught my eye
      • Consignment Shops: Best business model ever?
      • Cafes
      • Stocks -- Part XVI: Index Funds are really just for lazy people, right?
    • ► January (5)
      • Social Security: How secure and when to take it
      • Fighting giraffes, surreal landscapes, dancing with unicorns and restoring a Vanagon
      • My plan for 2013
      • VITA, income taxes and the IRS
      • How to be a stock market guru and get on MSNBC
  • ► 2012 (53)
    • ► December (6)
      • See you next year....until then: The Origin of Life, Life on Other Worlds, Mechanical Graveyards, Great Art, Alternative Lifestyles and Finding Freedom
      • Stocks -- Part XV: Target Retirement Funds, the simplest path to wealth of all
      • Stocks -- Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks Part XIV: Deflation, the ugly escort of Depressions.
      • Stocks -- Part XIII: The 4% rule, withdrawal rates and how much can I spend anyway?
      • How I learned to stop worrying about the Fiscal Cliff and you can too.
    • ► November (2)
      • Rent v. owning: A couple of case studies in Ecuador
      • So, what does a month in Ecuador cost anyway?
    • ► October (4)
      • See you in December....
      • Meet me in Ecuador?
      • The Podcast: You can hear me now.
      • Stocks -- Part XII: Bonds
    • ► September (6)
      • Stocks -- Part XI: International Funds
      • The Smoother Path to Wealth
      • Case Study #I: Putting the Simple Path to Wealth into Action
      • Tales of Bolivia: Calle de las Brujas
      • Stocks -- Part X: What if Vanguard gets Nuked?
      • Travels in South America: It was the best of times....
    • ► August (1)
      • Home again
    • ► June (4)
      • Yellow Fever, closing up shop for the summer and heading to Peru y Bolivia
      • I could not have said it better myself...
      • Stocks -- Part IX: Why I don't like investment advisors
      • Happy Birthday, jlcollinsnh; and thanks for the gift Mr. MM!
    • ► May (6)
      • Stocks -- Part VIII: The 401K, 403b, TSP, IRA & Roth Buckets
      • Mr. Money Mustache
      • The College Conundrum
      • Stocks -- Part VII: Can everyone really retire a millionaire?
      • Stocks -- Part VI: Portfolio ideas to build and keep your wealth
      • Stocks -- Part V: Keeping it simple, considerations and tools
    • ► April (6)
      • Stocks -- Part IV: The Big Ugly Event, Deflation and a bit on Inflation
      • Stocks -- Part III: Most people lose money in the market.
      • Stocks -- Part II: The Market Always Goes Up
      • Stocks -- Part 1: There's a major market crash coming!!!! and Dr. Lo can't save you.
      • You can eat my Vindaloo, mega lottery, Blondie, Noa, Israel Kamakawiwo 'Ole, art, film and a ride on the Space Shuttle
      • Where in the world are you?
    • ► March (7)
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part V: Sold! and the taxman cometh.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part IV: I become a Landlord.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part III: The Battle is Joined.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part II: The Limits of the Law.
      • How I lost money in real estate before it was fashionable, Part I: Impossibly Naive.
      • You, too, can be conned
      • Armageddon and the value of practical skills
    • ► February (6)
      • Rent v. Owning Your Home, opportunity cost and running some numbers
      • The Casanova Kid, a Shit Knife, a Good Book, Having No Regrets, Dark Matter and a bit of Magic
      • What Poker, Basketball and Mike Whitaker taught me about Luck
      • How to Give like a Billionaire
      • Go ahead, make my day
      • Muk Finds Success in Tahiti
    • ► January (5)
      • Travels with "Esperando un Camino"
      • Beanie Babies, Naked Barbie, American Pickers and Old Coots
      • Selling the House and Adventures in Staging
      • The bashing of Index Funds, Jack Bogle and a Jedi dog trick
      • Magic Beans
  • ► 2011 (22)
    • ► December (1)
      • Dividend Growth Investing
    • ► November (2)
      • The Mummy's head, Particle Physics and "Knocking on Heaven's Door"
      • "It's Better in the Wind" or why I ride a motorcycle
    • ► October (1)
      • Lazy Days and School Days
    • ► July (2)
      • The road to Zanzibar sometimes goes thru Ecuador...
      • Johnny wins the lotto and heads to Paris
    • ► June (16)
      • Chainsaws, Elm Trees and paying for College
      • Stuff I’ve failed at: the early years
      • Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
      • The. Worst. Used. Car. Ever.
      • Top Ten reasons your future is so bright it hurts my eyes to look at it
      • The Most Dangerous Words Your Customer Can Say
      • How not to drown in The Sea of Assholes
      • What we own and why we own it
      • The Ten Sales Commandments
      • My ever so formal and oh so dry CV
      • How I failed my daughter and a simple path to wealth
      • The Myth of Motivation
      • Why you need F-you money
      • My short attention span
      • Why I can’t pick winning stocks, and you can’t either
      • The Monk and the Minister

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