Go make toilets!

Sometime midway through my sophomore year in college, I decided to quit. That was 1968, almost 60 years ago, and if I could list the reasons, I would--but it's too long ago. I know it had much to do with identity, which was forming in me right then, as it should have, given that I was almost certainly facing the draft had I walked away from a conservative little college in the northwest corner of nowhere. 

I went to the Dean, to let him know I was throwing in the towel. I knew him, and he knew me. He'd served as principal of the tiny Christian school I attended years before in Oostburg, Wisconsin, just a big south of the town he lived it, Sheboygan.  Douglas Ribbens had the personality of a coyote; his quirkiness was legendary, even then. As I remember, the conversation went like this:

Me: Dr. Ribbens, I'm dropping out.

Dr. Ribbens: Go make toilets.

That was it.  Don't slam the door behind you.

What we both knew was that if I'd go home I'd likely end up working at Kohler Company. If you've never heard of Kohler, check the lettering on your latrine. He was telling me to go home and figure out who I was--maybe that would help. It was great advice even though his behavior would get him fired today. 

I thought about it and stayed.

I've been thinking of the possibilities had I not stayed at Dordt College that year, even though my grade point was basement level. What would I have become? 

I say that because as if out of nowhere I got a call from a childhood friend, another member of the baseball team that was outstanding when we were seniors, a kid who could through junk so hard to hit that bad guy batters would twist into pretzels trying to whack the ball. 

What's worse, he'd giggle. Notably.

Great guy, who lives half a block from the Presbyterian church he's attended since he was baptized, and a half black from the house where I grew up years ago. He says he sort of keeps an eye on things nowadays, just to see what's going on at our place. 

There's so much to say about the roles he played in my life, but for now I'll just tell you that he told me the coho were hitting last week. He and his son and grandson went out the found them, "twenty feet of water--that's it!" where the temperature was luxurious. Right there they stayed and spun in their limits, three days in a row, three guys.

I'll do the math. That's fifteen wonderful coho salmon (all that eating!) times three guys plus three days in a row. I don't know about tonnage, but that's a lot of sweet pink salmon. 

This old friend of mine didn't go to college, he went to war, and when he returned he went home and stayed there, on the lakeshore, to do battle with the big fish that suddenly were just then beginning to prosper once more in Lake Michigan. He hung dry wall, and was a builder in a region that rapidly grew new housing. He worked hard all during his life, kept a boat and a tractor to bring it down to the water, had kids, watched them play ball the way he and I did long ago. And, oh yeah, every Saturday morning, Bible study with a great bunch of guys, he said. And every once in a stretch, coho.

What would I have been had I listened to the Dean's blistering response to my leaving college? The more my old buddy talked, the more I couldn't help but believe I'd have done okay. Maybe spent some time out there on the high seas when the big ones were hitting, you know?

I stayed in school. My GPA bounced up almost immediately.

But I can't help saying that on Memorial Day morning, when he called--he'd heard I was down--I couldn't help doing a little second-guessing.