Ken's Photo Album/Ken-&-Dad-High-School-Gradu.jpg
Previous | Home | NextBecause my father did not raise me I was not expected to do exceptionally well in school. As a result I virtually never did homework. From the beginning I thought something was bullshit about school, now I know that so much of it is pure indoctrination, just getting the younger generation prepared for the crap they will be dealing with from their bosses later in life. So much of the work was useless and I knew it, so many of the teachers were lazy and simply used to students doing whatever they were told. I was not that student, I was the nightmare who asked the questions that they did not know the answer to. I was the one who pointed out that if I answered the question on the test in the most accurate and literal sense the answer would not be what they had intended. I was the one who would fall asleep when the lecture was crap and boring. I was the one who was sent to the principle, or the counselor, or suspended. Often times I would "ditch" school and just go surfing. On weekends I drank lots of beer and I did many different drugs. Sometimes I was absolutely right and the authority I was challenging deserved to be challenged, other times I was just being a pain in the ass. But all this time I was developing a tool that so many relinquish to the system, INDEPENDENT THOUGHT. I asked questions, studied my own interests, and generally went my own way. Although I got pretty good grades most of the time I barely graduated High School because of trouble with teachers and failing algebra 3 times because I hated it so much. After I got out of school I had zero intention of going to college like so many American kids. Instead I got a job at an exclusive French restaurant making good money but after a year and a half of that I felt that I needed a change. I felt as if I was becoming to complacent and lazy even though I loved my job and lived on the beach and surfed. Almost on a whim, while watching the classic Stanley Kubrick film "Full Metal Jacket," I decided to do something drastic, I was going to join the US Marine Corps and I wanted to become a "Grunt," become an infantryman. Within three months I was in the Marines.
