in your specialty?
And there was the straightforward way: trundle in a wheelbarrow of
money and buy a ticket.
This I would never manage-I had eighty-seven cents at that moment -but
it had caused me to think about it steadily. Of the boys in our school
half admitted that they wanted to space, half pretended not to care,
knowing how feeble the chances were-plus a handful of creeps who wouldn't
leave Earth for any reason. But we talked about it and some of us were
determined to go. I didn't break into a rash until American Express and
Thos. Cook & Son announced tourist excursions.
I saw their ads in National Geographic while waiting to have my teeth
cleaned. After that I never was the same.
The idea that any rich man could simply lay cash on the line and go was
more than I could stand. I just had to go. I would never be able to pay
for it-or, at least, that was so far in the future there was no use
thinking about it. So what could I do to be sent?
You see stories about boys, poor-but-honest, who go to the top because
they're smarter than anyone in the county, maybe the state. But they're
not talking about me. I was in the top quarter of my graduating class but
they do not give scholarships to M.I.T. for that-not from Centerville
High. I am stating a fact; our high school isn't very good. It's great to
go to-we're league champions in basketball and our square-dance team is
state runner-up and we have a swell sock hop every Wednesday. Lots of
school spirit.
But not much studying.
The emphasis is on what our principal, Mr. Hanley, calls "preparation
for life" rather than on trigonometry. Maybe it does prepare you for life;
it certainly doesn't prepare you for CalTech.
I didn't find this out myself. Sophomore year I brought home a
questionnaire cooked up by our group project in "Family Living" in social
studies. One question read: "How is your family council organized?"
At dinner I said, "Dad, how is our family council organized?"
Mother said, "Don't disturb your father, dear."
Dad said, "Eh? Let me see that."
He read it, then told me to fetch my textbooks. I had not brought them
home, so he sent me to school to get them. Fortunately the building was
open-rehearsals for the Fall Blow-Out. Dad rarely gave orders but when he
did he expected results.
