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!.