Cigarette Butts In The Rain: A Memoir
Sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than smart.
One morning in early 1973, I was on an Army base in Germany performing a sacred ritual. It was called “policing the area.”
It involved getting into a line with other unfortunates and slowly walking across an area picking up trash. Back then the trash was mostly cigarette butts.
I should have been honored to participate in such an ancient ritual, but it was cold and rainy, normal weather for central Germany. I felt more miserable than honored.
After a while, a truck pulled up. A forlorn looking Second Lieutenant (is there any other kind?) got out. He announced that some tests were being given at the post library and anyone who wanted to take them could come with him. I didn’t hesitate. I had no idea what the tests were, but I knew the library was warm and dry.
So I went. I was ushered into a room and given the test. It reminded me of the SATs I had taken in high school. I completed it, enjoyed the warmth, and didn’t give it a second thought.
Fast forward to August of the 1974. Now I was out of the army and in the office of an admittance officer at my local community college in Harrisburg, PA, a place that went by the charming acronym of HACC. I had given him a manila folder that contained my SAT scores and the results of that forgotten test from Germany. Turns out it was called a CLEP test, short for College Level Examination Program.
He looked at the results, asked me to wait a moment, and made a phone call. He then wrote down some information and handed it to me. It was the name and address of an admissions officer at Penn State/Harrisburg, as well as a time later that same day. He asked if I could meet with her.
I said I could, but what about getting into HACC? He just said, talk to her first.
That afternoon, I did meet with her. After about a 15 minute conversation, she said that based on my CLEP scores, I could start the next semester at Penn State as a junior.
Being 23, and thus ignorant, I had no idea of the magnitude of what had just happened. In a minute, I had just saved two years of time and many dollars. I drove home in a bit of a daze.
I had been an indifferent high school student, graduating only on a technicality (that’s another story). Now I was enrolled at a major university as a junior. It was magic.
The program I had enrolled in was an experimental one. It required a double major (in my case literature and art history) and granted the odd degree of Bachelor of Humanities.
It suited me perfectly and turned out to be a great, if difficult, experience.
Because things were cheaper then, and I was on the GI Bill and had a working wife, I graduated two years later with no debt at all.
It gets better.
I got a graduate assistantship at Kent State University, full tuition and a stipend. The free housing didn’t hurt either. Having started college as a junior, I still had two years of GI Bill left. Two years later, I got my MA. Not only did I have no debt, I had actually made money. By the standards of the time, my wife and I lived well in graduate school.
Let me just say it again. By blindly taking a test, in four years I got two degrees and turned a profit. Try that now.
Weep, oh ye debt ridden Millennials.
The moral of this story should be apparent. If you are ever picking up cigarette butts in the rain, and someone offers you a chance to get warm and dry, take it!
Sometimes, life turns on a dime. No life plan, to-do list, or self-help program is necessary. Just luck. That dime and that luck changed my life forever.
I still smile whenever I’m walking in the rain and come across the odd cigarette butt.
Even a blind pig finds the acorn occasionally.
If you like this piece, and can afford it, please consider sending me a buck or two at Paypal. I’m saving up for MIT in my next life…
