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By sixteen, my mother had me sleeping in my car outside of a testing facility in San Francisco, one hour south of Santa Rosa. She really didn’t want me sleeping in my car. She would prefer I stay home, but why would I return to Santa Rosa after studying on Saturday for my SAT test only to drive back to San Francisco on Sunday morning. The SAT score got high school students into college. My mother didn’t believe in waiting for my last year in high school to prepare. She was a Math teacher watching her smartest 13 year old girls get pregnant before they could graduate from junior high. SAT scores got students into college. Vocabulary tests, reading exams, tests on how to take a test. For example, don’t guess if you don’t know the answer, leave the question blank. Read the questions with a wrist watch next to the sheet of paper so that you could count the minutes. If you can’t figure the question out in less than a minute, go on to the next test question, because the test is being timed. Time is managed. College teaches students how to manage their time. College prepares students to work in a corporate environment. Deadlines are imposed upon employees. After leaving my last class on Friday afternoon, my mother prepared a meal, gave me some money, and I had a driver’s license that allowed me to drive into San Francisco, California. The best testing center preparing students for the SAT was between a Macys building by Geary Street around the corner from Union Square. I slept in the backseat of a Ford Granada by the Crab Pier where fishermen throw nets into the water to catch flounders and crabs. The bathrooms by Fisherman’s Wharf had sinks where I brushed my teeth. Sometimes at night I would walk around the Italian North Beach, Chinatown, and Financial District. By the time the sun rose over the San Francisco Bay, I was ready to study for the SAT test. The class rooms were large. Every seat was filled with students. The instructors went over vocabulary words that would be on the test. The teachers taught us the math equations. Labs were provided with headsets so that students could listen to lectures over and over again. This was a lesson I took to college. I brought a mini-tape recorder into my college classes. After recording the lectures, I would play the cassette tapes repeatedly in my car as I drove so that I would memorize each answer for the final exam. Life is a test. After the last lecture on Sunday, I would drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to Vista Point. Stop. Look at the city. Imagine my life in San Francisco. Breath in the salty air often filled with moist fog. Reluctantly step back behind the steering wheel. Drive up north to Santa Rosa. Prepare for another weeks of school. By Friday, I returned to San Francisco. I didn’t have many friends. Parents were scared of my adventures in San Francisco. I guess I am lucky. My mother didn’t pay attention to neighbors. She let me drive into the city with freedom as long as my test scores were high. I started to enjoy the junior high school classes as high school approached. I found Biology to be a fascinating science. The teachers held my curiosity so that I could continue to come to class without being bored. School ceased to become a routine as I began to grow with the program. School is simply a program serving a program. Teaching us how to act when we are not in school. So many of my friends were lost when they graduated from high school. A few gave into bad relationships. Some freaked out when they left home for college. Two entered rehab before finishing their second semester of college. The world holds so many distractions from the directions we hope to acquire after classes end in high school. If I had been more popular, the friends might have distracted me from driving into the city to study.

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