Be_Active

Jordan Smith Comp. 2 “Be Active” How many of you all want to look back, assuming you reach an age to where you can hardly move, and think to yourself,” Man I am so glad that I learned all that math”, or,” Dang I am so glad I missed out on all the fun and cool stuff just so I could end up laying in this bed all day.” This certainly is not the way I would like to remember my youth. When or if you turn eighty, school is not going to mean that much. Ever since I could remember, I have always been an active person. I remember when I was five playing baseball in the middle of the street and accidentally breaking car windows and just sprinting back down the street to my house before the neighbors came out! Now that’s something to laugh about and tell my kids and their kids. I am not telling you that anyone should go out and break other peoples property just for a story to tell your grandkids. The point is, if I were a house pet like most parents like to raise their kids, then I probably would not have had the joy of the experience. Playing baseball in the middle of the street and breaking car windows isn’t all that happened to me though. That’s just what happened around First and second grade. In the third grade, I started skateboarding. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was the best skateboarder out all the schools around my house except the high school. Skateboarding, to me, was so fun that I would sit out during recess to finish all of my homework so that I could go skateboarding when school let out! By the time I was a freshman in high school, me and some friends were taking the bus to the Garland train station and riding it all the way to downtown Dallas just to skateboard at least once or twice a week. Some times we would even get on a bigger train in Dallas and take it to skate parks in Irving. Anyone might ask,” Didn’t your parents worry about you'” I would answer,” I sure hope so!”. I never really thought about how dangerous doing what I did was at such an early age. I never thought about what I would do if I busted my lip open on a ledge and needed stitches, until it happened. We were all the way in Dallas and I didn’t want to try to find a hospital out there. So I rode the train all the way back to Rowlett and had my lip sewn back together. That was in the eighth grade. When I was in the tenth grade, my brother was a freshman in college. He was home for a short visit and we decided to go out to Dallas. We skateboarded for a few hours and then on the way back to the train, we were going down a hill and out of nowhere I saw, what appeared to be a bum, use a stick to trip my brother! This was probably one of the funniest things I had ever seen. I was kind of far behind so at first I was laughing. As I approached the scene though, I realized what was going on when this bum took my brother’s skateboard and was yelling and holding it like he was going to hit my brother with it. What a stupid bum. He should’ve known there was more than just one of us together. Before I found out exactly what he was going to do with my brothers skateboard, without stopping, I got off mine and picked it up. Still running, I swung it as hard as I possibly could. It was just like in one of those fighting movies where blood flies off of the opponent. I could see someone dying after such a hard hit to the head. We didn’t stay to find out though. Playing baseball and skateboarding isn’t all I ever did though. I personally enjoy building things. A party at my house is a case of beer after a good project. I can do bodywork on cars and make them laser straight. I spend hours upon hours every week even in the hottest heat of the summer doing all of the yard work. I’m good at fixing walls in a home. I can do all of the tapping and bedding. The list goes on and on. Sure my parents always made me do well in school, but they were never the ones to push me to the next level. They never really made me think that it was in my best interest to stay in my room for hours studying just so I could get the extra points on “tomorrow’s test”. I am so thankful for that, and here is the reason why. The number one reason for me to be proud to say that is this,” How many people do you know who have eighty-thousand dollar college degrees and work at places making minimum wage'” I know quite a few. These days, I realize that college is a business. You give a university eighty grand and they let you study, only to end up working for minimum wage. Sure it is possible for you to go to school and be something like a doctor, or a lawyer; but if everyone that did all of their work and made all the grades got to be what they wanted, there would be a bazillion doctors just in Texas. Don’t get me wrong. Everyone needs their education. Everyone should at least try to be who they want to be. If you want to take your chances and try to be one of the other bazillion people trying to be something like a doctor or a lawyer, go for it. Just remember, when or if you turn eighty, school isn’t going to matter.