John E Smethers
From grammar school through high school, teachers periodically made comments on my grade reports such as, 'John is a capable student but he will not apply himself.' They were right. I did just enough to get elevated to the next grade. My dad wouldn't let me quit. Because I was 17 during my entire senior year, I needed parental consent. Though I wasn't enthusiastic academically, my father still managed to instill a value for education that would surface in my life almost 30 years later. My lack of academic initiative was exacerbated by the ethos of the 1950s. Rock and Roll and James Dean was spurning out a breed of rebels without a cause that turned into the hippies and druggies of the 1960s. So it was with me. In 1956 when I was eleven years old, upon entering junior high school, I started drinking on weekends. Unlike youngsters of later generations, I didn't start experimenting with drugs until the summer of my high school graduation in 1962. I certainly would have if it had been offered to me. In a nutshell, I went to a party when I was eleven and didn't get back until I was 45. Over a period of more than 30 years, there was scarcely a time when I wasn't doing time, paying fines or restitution, doing community service, serving probation or parole, pending court, or suffering the loss of my driver license. I thought of those repercussions as dues that I had to pay to continue to live the way I wanted to. Today I own the home I grew up in and I have earned a few university degrees culminating with a Ph.D. The contents of this book are the papers I wrote while working on my doctorate at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
