Dinner with my Guidance Counselor

             Many years ago I was required to meet with my high school’s guidance counselor. I don’t recall his name now and this blog is not about him. In a round about way, this is about my mother. It is also about how things can work when they go well.

            I began my high school matriculation with a low opinion of anything ending with the word ‘school.’ School meant rules and dogma and lots of people bossing me around. But my first high school class of my first semester was a ten-week class called Guidance. We took a lot of tests in that class and wrote stuff about our interests. My primary interest then was sports. That hasn’t changed. And while reviewing my score on a stanine test (I got an 8 out of a possible 9 for having a big mouth and the willingness to use it), I saw a list of occupations that might be fitting.

            One of the suggestions was ‘Broadcasting.’ I instantly transposed the word ‘Sportscasting.’

            Boom. My future was determined. I would someday become the radio play-by-play man for the Los Angeles Rams. The remainder of my high school matriculation was nothing but the marking of time. History classes? Pointless because I already knew the history of the Rams. Math? Unneeded because I could already determine average yards per rush and pass completion stats. Biology? I already knew that knees, elbows and shoulders are made up of bone, ligaments and cartilage. English? One of my high school teachers told me that it was clear that I had no talent, so it was hard to have much faith in that individual. Hell, broadcasters talk more than they write anyway.

            Okay, fine. I did my time. Finally, on that day three years later, I went to the office and saw the counselor. His job, I think, was to point students toward a college with good programs for their interests or perhaps reliable training programs for the trades. He asked what I wanted to do and I said I was going to be a sportscaster.

            “Forget it,” he told me. “You’ll need to know every statistic about every player and team.”

            I looked at the idiot (yep, I still carry the grudge) and I said, “I already do.”

            At dinner that night, I told my mother about the encounter with the counselor. I told her what he said and what I said. And my mother slowly raised her eyes to meet mine. That usually meant I was in trouble. A lot of trouble. The more slowly she raised her eyes, the deeper the trouble I was in.

            But what my mother said this time was, “You’re right, Lee. You already do.”

            My mom never stopped believing in me. She asked me to run through my decision-making process once in a while, but she never stopped supporting my choices. And she was perfectly happy with my desire to become a broadcast journalist.

This month I’ll observe the first month of August I’ve ever gone through without my mom. It hurts. But what I carry with me is the memory of the words from the dinner table that night all that time ago. They gave me the freedom to chase my life’s desire. Those words started me on the path I followed for the next five decades.

“You’re right, Lee. You already do.”

Thanks mom.