Weekend Words – “80% of Success Is Showing Up,” Part II

As many of you know, I am a big fan of the famous Woody Allen quote referenced in our title. This week’s story, provided by my friend Joe Caulfield, exemplifies the truth behind that quote:

When I was 18, I was briefly, truantly, and ingloriously enrolled at the University of Maryland.  Following my academic dismissal, I worked as an electrician for about ten years.  When I was 27, I decided to return to school, starting at Montgomery College and eventually graduating from Catholic University.  During that stint I never missed class.  It was a sort of compulsion.

Following my graduation I was unable to find a position as an English teacher, so I continued working as an electrician.  In the evening I took one graduate class at the University of Maryland as what they called an “Advanced Special Student.”   (I hope they have since changed the phrasing of that designation, as it creates an unfortunate acronym.)

The firm for whom I worked had a contract with the WSSC, and one day it fell to me to install a piece of equipment in the sewers under the Aspen Hill neighborhood.  Sewers smell very bad, but nature is generous in that, after spending just a few minutes in the sewer, you really become inured to the smell.  While I was not wading in the effluvia I was working on a catwalk about 20 feet above oozing, fuming mass, and the scent does have a way of sticking to your clothes.  For some reason it was imperative that I complete the job that day, and I did not finish until about 45 minutes before my 6 o’clock class.

I found myself on the horns of a dilemma.  I could go home and take a shower and go to class late, I could skip class, or I could go to class cloaked in the redolence of raw sewage.  The first option was unacceptable because that would mean stumbling into class an hour late, which would be an insult to the professor.  On principle, I could not skip, so I decided to go to class in my sewer finery.

It was a warm September day, and my class was in an un-air-conditioned classroom facing the McKeldin Mall, so the windows had to be left open.  As I entered the room, my self-consciousness vanished.  It just so happened that earlier that day, as part of the renovation of the McKeldin Mall, workers had laid several tons of manure on the grounds.  The entire campus smelled as I did.

Every May I share this story with my graduating seniors as a kind of object lesson.  The moral of the story is:  God will take care of you if you just show up for class.

Several years ago a former student of mine who was enrolled at Maryland sent me an email telling me about an award she had won.  She ended with an aside that read, “Oh, yeah, they have been doing landscaping here at school.  The whole place smells like s**t.  It made me think of you.”

 Special thanks to Joe for sharing this with us.

Have a great weekend,

Ro

Joe Caulfield has taught high school English for 20 years, the last 13 at Blake High School in Montgomery County.  He is paid by direct deposit and enjoys his daily work so much that he likes to pretend that he is really a trust fund baby who can do whatever he wants.  In 2009, he
received the first-ever Sophie Altman Memorial Award for the Outstanding It’s Academic Coach in the Washington Area.  In the 10 years his Blake team has participated on the televised game show, it has made the championship finals four times without ever winning the title. Thus Joe
has anointed himself the “Marv Levy of It’s Academic coaches.”