The end is only the beginning

In the spring of 1980 at Jefferson City High School, I was a graduating senior and we pretty much ran the place.  We had done all the work. We had figured it all out.  We had arrived.  It was our school. We were the top dogs. 

In November of the same year, I flew into San Diego one pleasant evening and boarded a camouflage school bus with 43 other young studs.   Seconds after the bus pulled to a stop behind an old barracks, an angry man with four stripes on his sleeve came aboard the bus and told us we were not supposed to be on the bus, but instead should be lined up in neat rows outside.  He'd apparently received a report that we were the stupidest bunch of recruits they'd ever received, mentioned our mothers, and said that "you'd better not be the last one off this _____ bus!".  In the scramble for the door, I quickly realized that I was no longer the top dog and had possibly made a bad mistake.

After more than three years in the Corps, I'd made my way to sergeant with a few stripes and was in charge of the night crew maintenance on some million dollar helicopters.  During those wee hours each night, everything thing that happened in the squadron came through me.  I was the top dog.  

Less than a year later, I walked into my first class at Southwest Missouri State University.  Looking around the room I wondered if these kids had really been to high school or possibly just middle school. The English professor was talking slowly to us to make sure we didn’t get too confused.  I was nowhere near the top dog.  I was a Freshman.

After years of endless study, projects, exams, and hard work,  I was now a senior in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Missouri – Rolla.  I’d endured a daily beating with differential equations in Dr. Crosbie’s heat transfer class.  I had passed an eight hour comprehensive exam in engineering. With a sharp resume and new suit, I’d successfully interviewed fifty times and pulled down five good job offers.  I had done all the work. I’d figured it all out.  Surely I was some sort of top dog. I felt successful.

A week later I started my new job as a Design Engineer with the Paul Mueller Company in Springfield.  I arrived prepared to design something.  On day two, I approached the desk of the division secretary and asked where a completed large format drawing should be filed.  With an eye roll and body language that spoke volumes, she informed me that “we don’t fold them like that” and asked, “don’t they even teach you to fold drawings up there at Rolla?”. 

I was a Freshman again.

Yesterday we completed the Alaska Highway in Delta Junction and it reminded me that the end is often just the beginning.