As I sat around today, i realized the school year is almost over- and that I've been teaching at my current gig for almost 3 years now. Anyone that knows me at all would be surprised to know this, and upon reflection, it even surprises me a bit. I will be graduating my first class of kids that have been working with me for their entire high school experience. It seems like just yesterday I was at the James Logan tournament with a couple of freshman my first year, and after the tournament thinking to myself, "I'm really going to enjoy teaching these kids." I remember taking three freshmen to the Catholic National Tournament in Houston three years ago, and now all of those kids are telling me where they are going to college (and asking me if they can work for me in the future, which means IT WORKED). I'm insanely proud of all of my kids, and I can't do anything but want them to spread their wings and accomplish all of their goals and dreams. But as I reflect, I can still do nothing but wonder, "What happened to all that time? How did time move so fast?" I think I have a reason....
...I'm nowhere near smart enough to believe that I could come up with this myself. Know that going in. That being said, it seems to make sense, even at a very rudimentary level, and I wish for the life of me I could remember who I talked to about this...
...when you're young, everything you encounter is fresh and new, so the processing of things when you're younger seems slower- as things you're unfamiliar with happen, you have to process that information, and it takes longer because of that unfamiliarity. This makes sense to me, based on my knowledge of the way we see things- which involves more recollection and insertion of predictable responses than actually seeing shit, as 90%+ of what we call "vision" is a fragmented version of our own expectations (it's the reason we have a hard time recalling things we've just seen that were unexpected- the warrant behind eyewitnesses always , and i mean always having vastly differing recollections of the same event they watched happen). When we're young, everything seems fresh and new- think of the first time you saw a roller coaster, that really cool video game system, that Cabbage Patch Kid (which I am fully aware dates me, and makes me old) or whatever in the hell it was that intrigued you when you were young. For me, it was my dad's porn stack, which he so conveniently left in my bedroom, in a place he (assumed incorrectly) knew I'd never look- ironically, he hid the porn in the exact place I would have hidden stuff, for the same reason I would have hidden it there, assuming the other party was too unwilling to move the stuff to hide it. As an aside, I actually found them trying to hide some illegitimate bounty I had shadily attained, went to hide my newly acquired booty, and as I went to put it in the hiding space, there they were- newly acquired booty, but a very different and more enjoyable one. Apparently, dad had been collecting magazines for years, and didn't want mom to know. The next 7.5 years were awesome...
...On his deathbed, I told my dad I'd found them, and had been enjoying them for years. He said he knew. How did he know? Apparently, in the early days, before I'd figured out what leaving tracks were all about, I'd read (who am i kidding?!?) one of the finer issues of Playboy (Patty McGuire- November 1976- the photographic memory is good for something!). In the process of reading the magazine, I'd apparently forgotten to wash my hands, and left peanut butter fingerprints on the magazine. When I asked why he allowed it to continue, his answer was, in retrospect, very standard for my parents, with a twist- if we control bad influences, and they lose their intrigue, and you don't get yourself in trouble. His exact words were not as eloquent, but just as poignant, "Never bad to have a little material for the spank bank (yes, he said spank bank). You're much less likely to do any stupid shit outside with a ton of porn and herb at the house."
Touche, dad, touche.
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