Virginia Wolfe

Great Failures of the Extremely Successful Excerpt

Steve Young, editor (scroll down for Young's BIO); excerpted essay by Chris Crutcher

Copyright © Fall 2002 All rights reserved.

"When you are a trial and error species, you shouldn’t go knocking the errors.

"I was a dismal student. I became the first educational ecologist because I recycled every bit of my brother’s homework. I went through his closet and found it all. I had to go through his book reports and such, misspell some words and come to some bad conclusions.

"I had a very short attention span, but when I was up against it, I would do what was necessary to get my 'C.' I read a sum total of one book the entire time I was in high school. I was assigned 'To Kill A Mockingbird' and since it was new at the time, my brother had yet to write a book report on it. I had to actually read it. The next book they wanted me to read was 'The Scarlet Letter.' I still remember that test. The only things I got right was the color and the letter.

"Even though I didn’t read or work hard, I guess I already had the writer in me. I had two teachers who thought I was funny, but they also thought I was out of control. As punishment, they would assign me 500 word essays. You couldn’t get me to spend more than fifteen minutes writing an essay for a grade, but I would stay up all night to come up with something to make these guys laugh, for no grade at all.

"I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go to college but my dad would ask, 'Which service station do you want to pump gas at?'The only 'A' I received was in child/adolescent psychology.