I was neither a military brat nor a badass, although I would have liked being one or the other. We were really poor and we moved whenever my dad got wind of someone looking for him to collect money. He never made a second payment on anything in his life. There were times when we'd be in a house for a few months, the owner would come by asking for him, and we'd be gone by the next morning. When I look back on it, I'm amazed that I graduated from high-school.
I know what you're saying about being able to BS your way though a lot of things and in a way, I guess that's what he did in the movie. I never intentionally crashed another school, but I did blend in with the other side at football games on a regular basis, which was something very few people seemed to do.
Also, when I was 22 or 23, I went with a friend of mine to her former high-school to get her shot record (or something similar, can't remember exactly). When she went in the office, I stood in the hallway. A few students were mingling out around this office when this troll of a woman came up and started telling them to go away and wasn't at all polite about it. She looked at me and said something like, "Are you deaf?" I said, "No, I hear very clearly." She says, "Where are you supposed to be right now?" I looked at her in shock and said, "Wherever I find myself, that's where I'm supposed to be." At this time, I just figured this lady was rude, but now I realized she thought I was a student. Then, the shocker was, she pulls out this little pad and she starts to write me up for insubordination and for wearing inappropriate clothing. She said my shorts were too short and my shirt was not authorized (tank top). I told her my shorts were issued to me by the Marine Corps. It was about this time she noticed a tattoo on my arm and she had this look like someone slapped her. Finally, she says, "You're not a student here, are you?" I said, "No, ma'am, and I'm glad I'm not!"
----------
My bio isn't blank.
reply
share
MrCharmingMan
10 years ago
Awesome stories bro!
Sorry to hear your family was poor and always going through hardships. My family was pretty poor when I was younger but then my dad hustled hard and got his business off the ground and we began to live more comfortably.
As a small child I had to sleep on the floor of my grandmas house which was old and dirty in a dangerous part of the city. There were rats running around and it sucked bad if you had to sleep on the ground like me cause the rats would bother you while you would sleep. It was pretty disgusting actually.
But it seems like you are doing much better since you joined the marines right? Im sure you got to travel the world and learn a bunch of new skills from your service. Are you still in the military?
I think if I could do it all over again I'd probably join the air force or navy out of high school. i have friends who joined the navy and were making six figures while I was still in college trying to get my degree. I remember thinking man this sucks they are partying hard wearing high end clothes, drinking fine liquor, eating fine dining without even blinking and here I was a poor as college student with like 60 bucks to my name.
I had some success later on with business as I got older but it would have been cool to be making as much as my navy friends were in their early 20's.
But yeah back to our topic it still kinda works today. Even when you go to the bars most chicks believe whatever you tell them just as long as you are confident and smooth. I tell all these hot chicks I meet at bars a bunch of stories most are like 75% true and accurate but sometimes you gotta embellish or just completely BS your way into impressing them or of course to close the deal.
Even in job interviews you can pretty much BS your way into the job. Most people hire those who are good talkers and who can relate and come across as likable. Especially in sales jobs or management jobs.
I guess what I'm trying to say is if you are a good talker you can go far in life, but as the original point of this thread in the 80's it was even more open season times 10! since there was no Google back then lol.
reply
share
crockett_john
10 years ago
Yeah, life is a little better for me now. I'm glad I don't have to deal with any of that nonsense these day.
I wonder If kids really could get away with doing a stunt like that these days with all the information that's available. I remember checking into one school my freshman year after three weeks of the school year had passed, but I hadn't attended the school year yet. My teachers all told me they would adjust my grades once they saw what my progress was at my old school. For some reason, all my teachers thought I had attended the previous three weeks at my previous school, which I hadn't because I was already living in the new town. When my transcripts arrived, they all figured it out and one of them threatened to fail me for the semester, but none of them did.
The next year, at the same school, I had a geometry class and I figured out that if you turned in a paper with just about anything written on it, you would get a C-. I spent my senior year at a high-school that had a lot less to offer academically than the previous two, so when I got there, I had nothing left but electives. A lot of times, I could roam the halls and not get in any trouble, but you're right, it had a lot to do with attitude and what you said when questioned.
----------
My bio isn't blank.
reply
share