Life in a Petri Dish

As I look back into my distant past, I get the impression that I was always part of an experiment.

A few examples occur to me immediately:

When I had rheumatic fever I went to school one year via the telephone. A dedicated line was provided for intercom service at Cleveland Junior High School in Saint Paul...this was provided as a free service by Bell (their motivation was not all humanitarian since they were looking for a new application for a service that they had designed years earlier). The only real disadvantage to the system was that it used and Executone Intercom which was "push to talk" and while you were listening to what as going on in class, you could not really interact because as you pushed the bar down to talk it cut out any communication which was occurring on the other end. This was the first system of it's kind in the country and an article was done on me by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press (complete with pictures that included me, my Cocker Spaniel, my sister's parakeet, and a remote control fire engine). It was really a pretty good human interest story and being the "pack rat" that I am, I have it stored somewhere in a manila envelope labeled miscellaneous - 1956.

The next year I was able to attend school in the normal fashion and was promptly identified as an extremely viable candidate for a few new and innovative programs. The first was called "team teaching" and used the auditorium for a class of about 150 students in a social sciences programs that rotated between World History, American History, American Government & Civics. It worked like this: on Monday & Tuesday one of the team lectured on World History (complete with testing every two weeks), on Wednesday and Thursday another team member lectured on American History, and on Friday the third team member lectured on American Government and Civics. These were one hour lecture sessions, except for Friday which was an hour lecture followed by and hour discussion group. As you can see the program was patterned after a three credit college program which I recognized immediately when I attended the University of Minnesota. Then I was chosen to participate in a special science program designed by MIT. We were given these softbound physics texts each week covering a different aspect in physics and tested on the materials at the end of the week...the tests were 100 points and I seem to remember that our median score was about 11. Our brightest science student got a 29 on one of the tests and he actually became a PHD in nuclear physics...however, I learned very quickly that my career would not lie in that direction.

The next example occurred when I enlisted in the Air Force and was being assigned a Squadron...most of the squadrons were in number sequence 357, 358, 359...and mine was X360. Yes, the X signified experimental and was the "brainchild" of some staff officer who had way too much time on his hands. While I never totally understood the purpose, it used Marine non-commissioned officers (sergeants) as training instructors (TI's). It was suppposed to see if the Air Force could use Marine training techniques with Air Force Personnel...well of course being my usual SMARTASS self...my first comment was "If I wanted to be a f****** Jarhead, I'd have joined the f****** Marines"...you have no idea how that endeared me to these TI's (but I believe I still have a few boot marks on my chest). Remember this was an era when they were allowed to beat the hell out of you, and you didn't have the recourse of writing your congressman to complain. I survived and I have to admit that I liked the Marine cadence they taught us to use marching (we won all the drill competitions at parades).

The final example I will use in this log occurred when I was interviewing for a management development position at Bell. They had just developed a new program to select candidates and you can guess who was selected to test it out. The first day started with a battery of tests in the morning and was followed by what they called "assessment" in the afternoon. You were given a huge notebook containing materials about a fictitious company who had hired you as a management consultant...it was your job to determine a course of action and argue it to their "management team". There were two different cases, each of the next two days and when I was done I had no idea as to whether or not I would be hired. As it turned out I finished first of four hundred candidates.

"No Forrest, life is not a box of chocolates...life is being able to survive in a Petri dish!"