Looking out my backdoor: Anything worth doing is worth doing badly

I don’t know why so many of my life’s lessons seem to require humiliation.

Learning has always come easily to me, book learning, that is. And in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think book learning counts for all that much. My school reports consistently lined out the A’s and the comportment side matched. Yes, I was one of those.

I’ll not soon forget my dad’s disappointment at my first B+ in freshman high school algebra. I was pleased and relieved with that B+. It could have been worse. But dad’s frown imprinted my psyche.

All manner of skills came easily to me. Some things I studied desper...