What I learned from my 20s

When I was 20 I learned that sometimes you just have to decide on a major. When I was 21 I learned there is a much bigger world out there.

This has been a busy couple of weeks for this retired guy. We reconnected with friends from Mizzou at two events. We sang a concert at a local nursing home with the senior adult choir from our church. We made a road trip to take my mother-in-law to a high school reunion luncheon over on the east side of the state (we live in the middle). I attended a political event to meet a candidate (a rare sighting of a Missouri democrat running for state office). We said goodbye to my Aunt Mary at her celebration of life. I said a few words and led a prayer as the family pastor. But I am not going to write about that stuff. I overheard a topic on NPR that sounded fun. What did you learn from your 20s?  I didn’t get to listen to the whole thing, but when I think of my 20s four decades later, here are a few things I think I learned:

When I was 20 I learned that sometimes you just have to decide on a major. 

I was near the end of my sophomore year in college and still vacillating on what major to pick. I’d tried several subjects, finally settling on one I thought would keep my focus until I finished. It worked out. I still spent way too much time playing basketball instead of studying, but I graduated with a GPA just high enough to make graduate school possible, and my major helped me get my first few jobs. 

Higher education is much different today. The expense requires students to plan much more carefully and earlier. I didn’t visit a college until March of my Senior year in high school. When I talked to the guidance counselor, she seemed genuinely surprised I was considering college. Her reaction surprised me. I’d always assumed I’d go to college and assumed everyone else thought the same. But I also presumed they would let me in college even though I hadn’t worked very hard toward it during high school. Fortunately, the state university I attended basically had an open enrollment policy. I was required to take the ACT but I don’t remember what I scored. In other words, my ACT score was not memorable. I did just well enough in High School to get a little scholarship money and I worked while in school and the summers to pay my way through school. I took out a small loan but didn’t really need it. I spent the loan money to buy a car. I sold my classic ‘64 two-door cherry-red Mercury Comet Caliente because my girlfriend at the time didn’t like it.  I used the loan money to replace it with a ‘74 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. I don’t remember if my girlfriend liked the Cutlass any better, but it didn’t really matter, because I decided pretty soon after that I didn’t like her. So much for focusing on academics. It took me about four years past college to finally pay off that loan. 

For years, schools pushed students to get a four-year degree, rather than promote options like the trades. Today the conversation is shifting and that’s a good thing, acknowledging that not everyone needs a degree from a four-year college. There are great opportunities through trade schools and community colleges, or the apprentice route to a career. I’m still pro Higher Education. But it’s not for everyone.

I was not blessed with a passion for just one thing and have always envied people who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I picked a major and then worked at it until it took me to the next thing, graduation. Then, I took the degree it gave me and parlayed it into a job. That led to the next job where they hired me based on what I’d done in the previous job. The employer required the degree, but really wanted to know what I could do. That set in motion the things that happened next, most of which I would have never dreamed of back when I was 19 years old. And that’s how life happens to most of us. There is adventure in the trying, the doing and the places it takes us.  

When I was 21 I learned to be confident and love being independent as I engaged with a much bigger world out there. 

One of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is independence. But it is something that must be learned as they are growing up and sometimes it means allowing children to either sink or swim. I’m grateful my parents taught me to be independent. But there’s a difference between being independent and loving independence. I’d been on my own since starting college three years earlier. I loaded up my car and waved goodbye to my parents as I drove myself the four hours up Hwy. 63 to school in Northeast Missouri. I was the first to check into my dorm room and remember being alone and crying myself to sleep. I quickly took to college, though, made new friends and enjoyed college life. But I didn’t learn to enjoy my independence immediately. When I was a Junior, I took three weeks out of the semester to go on a mission trip to Taiwan, taking in Hong Kong and Honolulu in the process with a team of people from across the state. My first trip outside of the United States was an experience that totally changed my perspective.

I learned the world is a much bigger place than the one I knew. While in the Hong Kong airport, I saw George Plimpton who was waiting to catch a flight back to New York. One of my mentors on the trip, Charlie Johnson encouraged me to go meet him. Nervously, I approached him. George Plimpton was a popular writer and television pundit in the 1960s and 70s. I read his autobiographical “Paper Lion,” when I was in junior high. It was about a journalist (Plimpton) who convinced an NFL team to let him try out for quarterback. Other than his 6’ 5” stature, there wasn’t much else about Plimpton that said athlete. The Detroit Lions allowed him to come to training camp to vie for a spot on the roster with the rest of the quarterbacks. Sometimes comical, his utter failure in contrast with the real athletes shone a light on the brilliance and physical toughness required of the modern NFL quarterback. Paper Lion was made into a movie, too. Alan Alda, the actor who played Hawkeye on the television series M.A.S.H., played Plimpton in the movie. 

I introduced myself and we exchanged pleasantries. Plimpton kindly responded to my questions as simple and naive as they were. He was returning from Hong Kong having spent time with Expat friends taking in the Chinese New Year. No, his accent wasn’t British even though that’s what it sounded like to my green-behind-the-ears hearing. He had a Manhattanite accent having grown up in Manhattan where he still lived. He graciously and without judgment asked me about my travels and wished me safe passage on my journey. 

Once in Taiwan, we began to explore. I learned about the sights and sounds and smells of the night market where you could find nearly anything that crawls or swims fried on a stick, or still alive to take home to eat. I learned that the young people we met on our mission worked a lot harder than me just for a chance at higher education, which helped me not to take my education for granted. I learned to speak through an interpreter. I saw people my age preparing to leave their country and their families in order to go to school in America. Frank was one of those people. The next fall, I met him back in Missouri when he showed up for classes at my school. 

Taiwan is a beautiful island with a climate similar to Florida, located about 100 miles off the coast of China at the junction of the East and South China Seas. Its official name is the Republic of China (ROC). It came under ROC rule in 1945. In 1949 Chiang Kai-shek who was the leader of the ROC on the mainland withdrew to the island after losing the Chinese Civil War to the communists. Years later we would visit the mainland home of Kai-shek while on a trip to a city in China called Chen. 

When we entered Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, security forces with submachine guns and ammo belts were everywhere, alert to the possibility of terrorism or invasion by the communists. That was a sobering sight. But mostly, we enjoyed the natural beauty of the island and the hospitality of the people. We traveled the length of the island by rail from Taipei to Kaohsiung and back again. That trip helped me feel stronger and more confident to take on a much bigger world than I had known before and to try new things just in time for my Senior year of college. It helped me to at least begin to think outside of the Euro-centric orientation of my early education and the American bias through which I had always viewed the world. Most importantly, it showed me that my world could be much bigger than the cozy little corner I’d grown up in.