school

So begins our latest foray with school.
In this case dog-obedience training at Lollypop Farm, the area Humane Society and animal-shelter.
(And that’s how it’s spelled, everyone; it won’t pass your spellcheck.)
I thought my tortured experience with school ended with my degree from Houghton; 17 years.
I’ve had various minor encounters with school since.
First there were courses in accounting by the American Institute of Banking. But I really learned double-entry bookkeeping as a chief-clerk trainee at a bank-branch.
Next was photography courses at Rochester Institute of Technology, their glitzy new Henrietta campus.
But it was more darkroom work than anything.
The professor required a dissertation at class-end, and was impressed by what I turned in.
“Obviously you’ve had a liberal-arts education,” he remarked.
Bus-driver education was also a class, but more driver-ed than classwork.
What classwork there was was learning all their silly rules and procedures.
They were blown away by my intent to map out every bus-line, but I never did that.
It was too much a project and got in the way.
The mere act of driving bus gobbled up 12 hours a day.
And starting as an extra-driver meant variable hours.
Schoolwork was learning the bus-lines, and how to drive a bus.
During my employ at the mighty Mezz I took an outside Photoshop course that was frustrating.
The class had PCs, so Photoshop was bog-slow — not what I was used to on a MAC at the mighty Mezz. —They couldn’t afford MACs, so they said.
They also were trying to cram all of Photoshop into only four hours of instruction; way too much.
Better Photoshop instruction was at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.
Every student (about eight) got a MAC to play with, with Photoshop installed.
Way more interesting than school; no tests, no HUGE dissertation, no slamming notes during a droning lecture, no 89 bazilyun boring textbooks to read.
I remember at Houghton a history-professor assigning us an annotated-bibliography, and I was the onliest one that did it.
We were to pick a topic and read maybe 30 books that were pertinent, and then evaluate (“annotate”) each.
Obviously, such an assignment was well beyond the average student, who did good to read the course textbook.
It also was beyond the professor’s grading it.
He assigned it in the first semester of my Junior year, yet got it back to me in the second semester of my Senior year.
“Hey Dr. Troutman; got that annotated-bibliography graded yet?” I’d ask.
A fellow-student complained the assignment was utterly impossible.
“Bob did it!” Troutman would gloat.
Sure; all I did was figure out how many books to skim each week — about three per week.
What this is is learning time-management.
Skimming a book is hardly reading it.
So all Troutman could do was throw up his hands and give me an “A” for effort. —And of course the class I had done it for was long over.
So essentially the annotated-bibliography didn’t count for anything, and the “A” was for nothing — just getting me off his back.

This first dog-obedience class was dogless — which meant leaving our dog alone in the house so we could attend the dogless lecture.
Alone in the house, our dog is a nervous wreck; she hates to be left alone.
As I started down the highway, I could see a pink tongue in the bow window of our house.
Getting to Lollypop took about 45 minutes — we got there about 15 minutes early.
“Lollypop is the fifth-best humane society in the entire country,” the instructor bragged.
Well, at 15,000-20,000 sq. ft. it’s mighty impressive. Not a Wal*Mart big-box, but not a 1,000 sq. ft. Ontario County Humane Society (“Happy Tails”).
“100% funded by donations. No gumint funding whatsoever.”
There was strident evidence of this walking into Lollypop; a long brick sidewalk of memorial bricks.
“In loving memory of Muffy,” and “Remembering Chipper, who could always make us smile.”
Continuous memorial bricks as far as the eye could see.
“For heaven sake,” I said. “Watch where ya step!”
We sat down in the classroom, among about four others; and then the rest began arriving; total about 30.
“How many in each class?” my wife had asked an attendant.
“About eight.”
30 people ain’t eight, but actually it was three classes, altogether for the lecture. (I can just imagine 30 dogs in a room.)
Finally the instructor arrived, dragged in by her German Shepherd. “This is not a sterling example of dog-obedience,” she said.
On-and-on her lecture droned; I glanced at my watch. “You have to remember a dog is a pack-animal. Your goal is to establish yourself as the leader of the pack. —In which case, your dog decides you are boss.”
“Okay, so your dog lunges out to leash-end after a squirrel, she hits the end, and returns for her treat.......”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Try that with our dog and the squirrel is the treat — the actual treat counts for nothing. This has already happened.”
As usual, it will be an interplay of instructor versus us; unbeholden to vast greatness, and leery of self-declared expertness.
Liberials (dread).
It’ll be what works for us. I don’t wanna terrify or intimidate our dog. I’m sorry, but her tuning us out in the woods is dogginess — I’m not about to stop that.
Returning home we stopped at a foreign Weggers to buy groceries; “foreign” meaning we’ve never been there before.
Inside we passed a photo-lab, where people were processing photo-discs on a Kodak Photoshop machine.
A girl was lost; “Now what?” she cried.
“When you’re done-done, click done!” someone said.
Marcy, it’s everywhere!

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

Shortly after graduating Houghton College, I worked three years as a management trainee at Lincoln Rochester bank in Rochester. I was let go because I didn’t have a proper voracious management attitude.

After the bank I attempted to freelance auto-race photography for seven years — sold about 30 pictures to Road & Track Magazine. The last three of those years, I wrote motorsport coverage for City/East newspaper, a small weekly newspaper on the east side of Rochester. (That paper is now known as “City.”) —The photography courses applied to my freelancing. At that time Rochester Institute of Technology was famous as a photography and printing school.

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, N.Y. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.

A “PC” is a Windows Personal computer (PC). A “MAC” is an Apple MacIntosh computer. “Photoshop” is an image software; at that time it worked best on a MAC. (My computer is a MAC.)

“Dr. Troutman” was the relevant history professor.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s four-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

My siblings all think us horrible because they claim we are “Liberials.” Actually, we’re more doubters, and questioners. (“Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. [Recently it’s “liberila” or “lebieral.”]) —My siblings are all tub-thumping Conservatives; goosestepping to Limbaugh.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs — Marcy’s is Playtime at Hazmat.) —Marcy asked me once where I got so much insane material to write up. “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I answered.