Escape from the Prison House

I was talking recently with my friend and former colleague of thirty years Karl Staubach about his time in the Army during the Korean War. He had finished a year or so at the University of Michigan when he abruptly enlisted, even though he would have been deferred.  Why?  Well, he told me, he couldn’t stand sitting in classes. Out of class he was never bored.  He had a wonderful life out of class – curious about everything, doing all sorts of physical and intellectual stuff –  but schooling was driving him nuts.  When he told the dean about how bad it was, the dean promptly said, “Join the Army.”

Where everything is

After a year an a half, he was discharged, resumed college and had a fine time.  I asked what had changed.  “I didn’t take it seriously anymore.  I took complete charge, including how to deal with teachers and classes.”  From then on he enjoyed the university and used all the good things a school does have – library, labs, telescopes, microscopes, artists, poets, brilliant minds to be engaged – he just didn’t let schooling interfere anymore.  He hardly spent any time on schooling, but got great grades and a beautiful GPA.  Meanwhile he was educating himself, just as he did when he spent summers as a forester on Mt. Adams inWashington or making his own sailboat out of Volkswagen van top or a guitar out of a cigar box.  Film, mythology, linguistics, optics, mathematics – you name it.  Once he was running the show and not his teachers, it was all fun.

  Shades of the Prison House

An A student