Choose

In this life, we choose.  We choose our friends, our job, our spouse, where we live and how we live.  Our choices define us. When I was in High School, the kids were identified by which group they were in. You might not have known a kid's name, but you always knew which group he was in. You could pick out which group a kid was in by his clothes, by the way he talked or by the people he hung out with. It was like we were were wearing signs on our chest that described the salient facts of our lives. My sign would have read “My name is Mike. The groups I belong to are TheJocks and TheFarmersKids. I am sixteen years old. I am an underachiever.”

At my school, there were three or four big groups and a few smaller ones. The big groups, with lots of kids in the group, were TheJocks, TheStoners and TheStudents. And BandKids. None of the other groups liked the BandKids. It was like the BandKids all had the plague. But, that was thirty years ago. I am pretty sure that things have changed and the BandKids are popular now.

There were lots of little groups, like ThePoorKids, TheFarmersKids and TheFFAKids. I am just guessing here, but I bet there aren't more than ten or twenty schools outside of Iowa where TheFarmersKids and TheFFAKids were two separate groups. In case it isn't obvious, I should say that I grew up in a farm town. We had kids that drove tractors to school. Tractors. It wasn't an every day event, but once I was walking through the parking lot and I saw Dawn Patnode's brand new Datsun 240z parked next to Dave Walker's dad's twenty year old Massey-Ferguson tractor. The Massey-Ferguson was red. And a piece of crap. I don't remember what color Dawn's car was, but it was brand new. The rest of us rode the bus or drove our Mom's Oldsmobile to school. Dave and Dawn must have lived in homes without Oldsmobiles.

On my first day of High School, I was placed into two groups, TheJocks and TheFarmersKids. I was in TheFarmersKids because my dad was a farmer, which seems obvious, but that group was unique because it was the only group that you didn't volunteer for. If you wanted to be in TheStudents, you would skip woodshop and take AP math and maybe wear a bad sweater. Those kids made a choice. If you wanted to be in the TheFFAKids, you bought a blue corduroy jacket and went to the monthly meeting. But TheFarmersKids, we were marked at birth. Most of us lived in average houses, but our houses weren't in neighborhoods or on cul-de-sacs, our houses were all on dirt roads.

It is a little known fact that over ninety percent of farmers houses don't have lawns. Not many people know that. Most of the farmers houses were just stuck down in the middle of an orchard. The lawn would cut into the productive land so farmers, being what they are, they go without lawns. For most farmers, a lawn is strictly a financial decision. Our family had plenty of room for a lawn, but my Dad thought it was a waste of time and money to water and mow a lawn.  I thought that was weird at the time, but I have a lawn now, and I think it's a waste of time and money. I hate it.  I think that is a farmer trait, and while I am not currently a farmer, I was.  I wonder if that makes my kids TheFarmersKids, once removed?  Not sure about that and I don't know where to look it up.  Google has nothing on that topic.

A lot of TheFarmersKids wore jeans that had holes in them from working in the orchard. We all worked after school and on weekends for our Dads. Sure, we all were paid, but we were paid thirty cents on the dollar.  I guess the rest was deducted for rent.  One of the kids at school always came to school smelling like diesel oil, which immediately qualified the entire family for TheFarmersKids, cum laude status.  But, here was the rub; his dad didn't have a farm or work on a farm. His dad was a fall down drunk, but the kids in his family all worked on the neighbors orchard to keep from starving, so they were in TheFarmersKids group, but only held non-voting membership.

You could switch groups if you wanted to. If you got cut from the basketball team, and you liked to smoke dope, you could joine TheStoners. TheStoners didn't have a big prerequisite list to gain full membership, other than maybe a Bic lighter and I am not sure you had to prove you actually owned a lighter. I think you could say your Mom took it away and still get in.

Andy was one of my best friends, he was in TheStudents group and his girlfriend was in TheCheerleaders group. TheCheerleaders acted like they were in TheJocks group, but we hated TheCheerleaders. They served no useful purpose.  We liked TheStoners. TheStoners were a lot more fun. If we held meetings, we would have voted TheCheerleaders out and TheStoners in.

No matter which group you chose, you had to be in one. It wasn't an option to not be in a group. If you weren't in a group, you defaulted into TheLeftovers. If you were in TheLeftovers, it really meant you had no friends, or if you had friends, your friends were in TheLeftovers. Nobody wants to have leftover friends.

It's amazing to me now, but I still associate those people that I knew in high school by the group they were in then. I don't mean to imply that the person still qualifies for group status. Most don't. None of our Dads still farm, but I am still in the group. I think that is how the caste system got it's start. If I lived in a country with a functional caste system, I would be an Untouchable and my kids would be Untouchables.  This stuff stays with you for life.

The wheel turns and history repeats itself. Today, we choose. Do what you will, but choose something. For now, I choose to be in TheTriathlon group and I have an Ironman event always on the horizon. I like being in that group. The people in TheTriathlon group are fun. The lifestyle is healthy. I mean, except for your knees, the lifestyle is healthy. Gaining membership doesn't mean you have to do an full Ironman before you can get in the group. Just start training.  Or do a Sprint. Do an Olympic. Whatever. Choose. I fell into TheTriathlon group by accident. I thought I was going for a beer with friends but they lied to me and made me run three miles and throw up; In the end, it doesn't matter how you get there, it only matters that you chose to do it. 

There is a great line from the movie “The Shawshank Redemption”. One of the characters says, “get busy living, or get busy dying”. Words to live by.  I read that quote to my wife, she reminded me I was going to die in either case.  Killjoy.

If you want to be in the group, just show up. We take everybody.  Even BandKids.

Choose.