I viewed my school years, especially the early ones, as a waste of time. After all, how could reading about some dead guy who talked about ravens equate to catching carp on the Big Sioux River? I bet that guy never had much fun in the summer like I did. But, school was required, at least until the eighth grade, and off we went to seek our fortunes sitting in those hard board seated desks and staring at a blackboard that was really black.

Education was not a high priority to me. I was going to farm, so why did I need to figure out what x plus y equaled? My granddad had only a third-grade education and he could tell you how much you owed your neighbor for 235 bushels of oats at sixteen and a half cents a bushel. And he could tell you the correct amount in about 15 seconds without paper or pencil. He also know how many kernels of corn should be planted in the space of a foot and how deep the planter should be set. He could figure the weight of a butcher hog within ounces and he rarely missed his guess. I thought he knew about all there was worth knowing with his third-grade education. Why should I need more?

I told this to my parents, but not a tear of sympathy was shed at my pleading. I was going to school, like it or not, and I was expected to turn in a decent report card that showed that I was paying attention. The pressure was immense!

It would have helped in my early education years to know that the small farm was a thing of the past. There was no future for a farm that remained under 200 acres and they got bigger after I left school. After I'd figured out that I was not going to be tilling the soil for the rest of my days, I started to look for other career choices. It was tough.

I remember going in to my high school counselor's office and asking him for help. He basically pointed me over to a large file cabinet and told me to start pawing through the files looking for anything that intrigued me. So much for guidance.

Someone should have told me to take up teaching English. I always had done well in the subject, although I hated it with a passion. How I was able to put nouns and verbs in their proper place, I'll never know. But it was easy. My friends envied my ability to get good grades in Mrs. Lindgren's class. She was a driven teacher of correct English. I saw my giant, red-haired friend Melvin almost come to tears over an English assignment. He had dangling participles all over the place and commas were his downfall. He put them everywhere and I swear Mrs. Lindgren ran out of red ink correcting his papers.

Yes, someone should have pushed me in that direction, but I probably wouldn't have taken the advice. I hated English with a passion; am I repeating myself?

Instead, I decided to take up wildlife management after I left high school. It was the closest thing I could think of to farming, and shoot, all I would have to do would be to count pheasant eggs and catch fish with a net, right? What I didn't factor into the discussion was the fact that lots of math and chemistry was needed to be a wildlife biologist. Did I mention that I could never figure out what x plus y equaled? I was a fish out of water in the wildlife management field and somehow I drifted into journalism through the last years of my college career.

My daughter is still finding her way to a major in college. She'll do just fine. Just look at me.

I would have never guessed in 1969 that I would be sitting at this keyboard writing a feature column for newspapers that have chosen to put my lines in front of their readers. I would have said, no way! But here I am, typing away and trying to figure out how I got here. Life does have its mysteries. And, some people have actually told me that they read my stuff. Wondrous!

It's close to back-to-school time and there are those like me out there who are wondering where they are headed and why they are headed there. All I can say is, have a happy voyage and don't miss the bus!

See you next time. Okay?