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Life | The Secular Confessional



 

The Secular Confessional

©2022 by Vernon Miles Kerr and VernonMilesKerr.com 

There were only private Kindergartens in Alabama, when I was five. So my mom taught me to read on her lap, using her great-aunt’s 19th century McGuffey’s readers. When I got to California in time for first grade, I was immediately teacher’s pet. I got to do chores for her during reading class. (Looking back. it was probably because I was showing-off and being a disrupter in the reading circle.)

I’ve been teacher’s pet, many times since. I think it’s the source of the intellectual snobbery I have. Don’t lie, you readers have probably noticed it.

As an undergraduate, I really rubbed it in with dear friends and family members, I was going to be the first to get a degree. Guess what? Circumstances cut that pursuit off, after my Junior year. Later, not having learned that lesson, still a snobbish elitist, I was given an exception and admitted to a fine accredited law school sans-baccalaureate. Circumstances killed that opportunity as well—in my second year.

I try to kick that negative aspect of my personality, but a kind of neediness for validation still gets in the way. For instance, why did I just now chose “sans-baccalaureate,” above? I could have just said “without a degree.” Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. “Padre, me arrepiento mucho”

There I go again, dammit!.

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