legacy from my grandparents, I was a professional student at the University of New Mexico between 1963 and 1971. I took seven semesters to flunk out of math and physics, finally taking a masters in English. Upon graduating, I discovered that to my horror that the commercial need for shakespearian scholars that I had anticipated as a student had shockingly failed to materialize. The things I did to get through college -- digging ditches, shaking hides, loading boxcars, etc., had become my career. I was resentful and scared. I blamed the government for not taking better care of me, and saw National Socialism, a moderate form of socialism that nationalizes businesses reaching a certain size or influence, as a viable means of correcting the system that had thus abused me.

Of course I was wrong. I simply didn't know how the system works. I immersed myself in self pity pointlessly for about a year before I finally figured out that the casual labor employers for whom I worked were using those jobs as a means of interviewing and selecting me. Withal, they liked me: Anyone who shows up regularly, doesn't break the equipment, and tries to be nice to the customers has a secure place in the American economy. As long as the minimum wage doesn't climb to prohibitive heights, and the unions are kept in their place (i. e., abolished) casual labor offers a way into the system that no government program can hope to match.

I went on to a number of things after my matriculation in the School of Hard Knocks, but everything I ever did or became after that was the product of the experiences I had there. I learned that I could do anything I wanted -- the trick was finding what it was I wanted to do. I went through a long succession of failed businesses, management gigs, and selling jobs (a co-worker once asked me whether I'd ever been a pimp, as I seemed to him to have done everything else. I assured him I hadn't. But then, I can't get girls to take me seriously even now).