Neanderpundit

Probably won’t be with us long.

I’m not a hardcore fan, but I’m damned if The Weight isn’t one of the best songs ever written.

When I was going to school at Purdue, there was a rash of students dropping out and moving out into the marketplace.

One of my teachers, an english teacher named Charlie Tinkham had asked the class this question, more or less:

“Why would you, say, buy a lamp, and then not take delivery of it? if you spent the money, why would you not come get the lamp?”

Referring of course to the students who had paid for that education and didn’t go to school and get it. I didn’t have a good answer for Professor Tinkham then, but i do now.

The lamp, Proffesor, s overpriced. It is not the lamp we need, nor does it illuminate what we want it to illuminate. It’s kind of ugly, too, and while people expect us to have a lamp, they understand it’s worthlessness.

At the time, my drafting teacher was a pakistani guy who loved if you used a lot of weld symbols no matter how inappropriate they were (I once got an A on a paper which had “Weld all around, 3/16″ bead” symbols on each of 200 10-24 screws.

if, on the other hand, your title block wasn’t machine-perfect, you got an F, no matter how well the drawing was drawn. We also had a CompSci teacher who was an actual clown- Partner had him for a couple classes too, and they goaded him into coming to school dressed as a clown one day. He looked like Captain Spaulding. Nobody was surprised. Anyway, his idea of teaching us was to type shit on the main computer while we copied it down. In other words, if you could type, you passed. Very educational.

Oh, I had an architect who taught statics, from whom I learned a great deal, and an electrician who taught basic circuit theory, who helped a lot as well, but most of the teachers thought their jobs were to yap, and the students mere interruptions of their yapping.

So I, like a lot of students disillusioned with the system, I dropped out.

the end of that answer, Professor Tinkham, is that I have learned to make lamps myself. They illuminate what I want them to illuminate. They are elegant and useful, and they suit me fine. And now other people respect the light I shed as well.