When assigned by our second grade teacher, Miss Kern, to sketch a picture of our chosen profession, little Bill Bardwell immediately drew the figure of a nuclear physicist. His dad worked at the Indian Point nuclear plant, apparently with a beaker in his hand and the words "Nuclear Phssist" written on his lab coat.
I remember being surprised that I had to choose a career at that point in life. This is my earliest memory of the pressure to be something, and naturally it caused me some anxiety. I'm proud to say that I overcame my initial apprehension, got my crayon down to paper and whipped up the image of the potential job which appealed to me most. My work of art was a composite of fuzzy images gathered from staying up late to watch Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd on SNL. I applied all my stick figure scrawling skills to to depict a comedian engaged in the act of joke telling. I was proud and pleased with my choice, it was unique among a class full of wanna-be astronauts and Yankee first basemen. My aspirations to comic genius were, to me, even more impressive than that little punk Bardwell's future of nuke mongering.
I believe the eggplant-shaped Miss Kern must have gotten into teaching to crush the spirits of little children because that bitch told me "comedian" was not a real job. This threw me into crisis and, in a panic, I asked her what a real job was. What should I be? She told me, probably with cynicism that my young ears were not yet tuned to detect, that "President" was a real job I could do. I now know she was almost certainly being sarcastic, but, at the time, I was flattered and became eager to achieve my destiny.
It should be pointed out that all this followed the "Happy Fucking Valentines Day" incident. That story in short: The eggplant/teacher had the class make Valentines Day cards and the only thing I spelled correctly on my card was the expletive. My parents were called in and presented with the atrocity I had created. They feigned shock and horror while suppressing laughter, but Kern saw through it. As a result of my H.F.V.D. card and my parents subdued reaction to it, the eggplant picked on me ever after. I still don't know exactly what she must have done to cripple my education at that crucial point but I think I can blame her for my inability to spell.
Anyway, for some reason the idea to be president stuck with me right through hundreds of cut classes in high school and even survived a year or two after dropping out of college. I think the realization that the dream was dead hit me during my messenger days... it became apparent that I was just too far down to get that high up. My present had become sufficiently sordid to burden my future with a shady past.
Yesterday was my 34th birthday, which means that next year I will be the minimum age to serve as President Of The United Sates, or POTUS as the secret service guys in the movies call it. Sometimes I wish I could say that I squandered my chances to be commander-in-chief with an ill advised career as a comedian, but alas, I didn't screw things up exactly the way I intended to. Instead I get paid to write about broken stuff on boats. Occasionally folks even pay me just to go for a sail and look knowledgeable while scribbling notes. Maybe I could have/should/will do better, but I really can't complain right now. It could certainly be worse. I wonder if that Bardwell chump is about to preside over the next Chernobyl.
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