I, like you, am crazy enough to go to summer school. But please, don’t for one iota think that anywhere would be better than DeKalb.

Instead of being in DeKalb and grieving at NIU, I am suffering in the valley of Hickville while sweating it out at ICC. And believe me, the classes I am taking undoubtedly put yours to shame.

No, I’m not trying to imitate the Boss’s Clarence Clemons and I didn’t have any trouble getting my classes or books. Actually, I am extremely jealous of you and your learning sanctuary here in the infamous home of barbed wire. You see, my kinder and genteler summer readers, I am studying red-neckology while indulging in shift work at a local cement company.

And, being the inquisitive college material that you are, you might ask why I have chosen such an odd endeavor. Obviously there are more glamourous internship opportunities than making cement, even for an overrated journalist.

And more importantly—why in Gerald O’Dell’s half-completed horseshoe football stadium am I even taking up your time with something as “real-world” as this?

Because, students, you shouldn’t drink every night.

Actually, I found some very profound similarities between being a laborer and getting an education so you don’t have to become a laborer.

And believe me, a shovel fits into everyone’s hands with as much ease as a pencil.

One night me and the guys on my shift decided to help the local economy after getting off of the afternoon shift. The afternoon shift is the primary drinking shift since you start at 3 in the afternoon and get off at 11 the same night. Bars in Hickville close at 2 or 3 in the a.m. on weekdays, depending on the establishment, so it’s pretty convenient to get off of work and enjoy some libations while tying a good one on.

Anyway, our numbers dwindled as we wondered how we were getting home, while praying there were no DUI traps set out that evening/morning. And after exhausting “shop talk” for the third time, we eventually were joined by the familiar partner who hangs out with people who economize too much.

Yes, right again, the all too ugly and familar “talking-too-much monster” reared its ugly head.

The two guys I tried my darndest to keep up with (admittedly, like a fool), had collectively walked down the aisle with five different brides and managed to stay with them for over 40 years—and, believe it or not, they actually are good guys.

However, as I’ve been told so many times before, guys are dumb. And, to an extent, these guys rank at the top of the stupidity chart, each indulging in or succumbing to enough “flings” to last me and my innocent body a lifetime. (Indulgences with eventual wives were excluded for the sake of mathmatical ease, and besides, if I were good in math do you really think I would try to be a writer?)

Anyway, after listening to the “I’m-really-lucky-to-have-a lady-like-my-wife-but-don’t-ever-get-married” routine, the self-doubt and self-examination set in.

These two guys—who really would bend over backwards for you—were beating themselves senseless for being mere bill payers and ordinary blue-collar types.

Talk about being in a situation that epitomized being between a rock and a hard spot. So, as anyone should do, I told them the truth without trying to evoke contempt from the “school kid.”

Although they will never even be close to becoming geophysisists (or even insurance agents, for that matter), these guys give an hour’s work for an hour’s pay, (actually, the wages suck, but you get the point). They do it everyday, and wouldn’t think twice before helping you out of a jam at 4 in the morning, no matter who they were keeping warm with.

And more importantly, they don’t have any trouble sleeping at night or passing the “mirror test” in the morning, no matter what faults they have, or what they perceive them to be.

Can you say the same?