Initiative

I remember my professor slapping a label on me, descriptive of what he saw, and subsequently used by me, as "Yeah, sure!" For my style to that point, I was missing only the label, the elegant formula. Everyone should find their label, the intellectual tattoo. It can be fate-threatening ("Born to Kill"), or life-defining ("Stem-winder"--that's me!).

Harry Moran was a great principal. He always started the assemblies (in the 7^th grade, Main junior high, Mishawaka) with intellectual cheers. Looking over the top of his pince-nez, "Alright now, all together: What's initiative?"

"Do the right thing at the right time at the right place with the right spirit without being told!"

"Not loud enough! I can't hear you! Again!"

"DO THE RIGHT THING AT THE RIGHT TIME AT THE RIGHT PLACE WITH THE RIGHT SPIRIT WITHOUT BEING TOLD!!" There were others such cheers. I wish I had the list.

Branded for life, or, rather, HOUNDED for life!

When the exercise class is canceled, initiative takes over. You exercise alone, and become a self-starter, and continue the schedule, every MWF. It's with me still.

And how have I used "initiative", defined for me by that principal? (Take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.)

• In early elementary school, I was a "robin redbreast" in a school operetta.


• I won second prize (behind Rocco Germano, destined to become the concert master and first violin of the South Bend Symphony), doing imitations/impersonations. (A Kodak Brownie camera — 3rd grade).


• The lead in a fifth grade operetta — dressed like a prince (a miniature Christopher Columbus), holding the hand of a "toe-dancer" (Jane? June? Cartwright — head fairy), singing "Fairies are really true, really truly true. If you believe in fairies, they will believe in you." I have always wondered about the fun two elementary teachers had as they dressed me in that costume in a small janitor closet at the high school. Also, about the connotation of that word at that time.

Start a community forum. Direct a play. Start a town hall. Start a conversation. Write a libretto. Bake your own bread. Design a web site. Learn word-processing. Change houses. Build a cabin. Refi. Control diabetes. There is no end. Oh, except.......

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(Last updated on June 15, 2006 )