_{^{A quick look back at a “bird course” I took in high school, and understanding that some lessons take years to sink in}}

Back in high school I took a course called Bachelor Living.

Poor, dear Mrs. Hearn was our teacher — and I shake my head and roll my eyes now thinking of all the nonsense she had to deal with from a classroom of silly, hormonal teenage boys, who were far more interested in eating ice cream straight from the container and whipping each other with tightly rolled-up dish towels than learning anything, at least in that class.

And what did we learn? I remember we were meant to sew, cook, and plan a budget. But oddly, I don’t remember sewing anything. There were sewing machines in the classroom, I think. And we were likely shown hot to sew a popped-off button back onto a dress shirt, but for the life of me, I can’t recall doing it.

What did we cook? Lasagna comes to mind, for some reason. Likely because that seems like an easy dish for even the most hopeless bachelor to make, and one good for leftovers for a few days too — quick, tasty leftovers surely coveted by bachelors the world over. Again, I’ve no recollection of actually making lasagna though. Which saddens me. What on earth did we actually do in Bachelor Living?

Well, I do recall having a binder for this class, and one day filling out a weekly or monthly budget. This was an assignment. We were given a handout, I think, and we had to fill in how much money, given a certain income (likely a sum we thought enormous!), we would spend on rent and groceries and clothes and entertainment, and so on. Did we budget for rent or a mortgage payment? You know, I think I recall well that what we budgeted for was rent. Bachelors rent apartments, I guess. That’s what we were being told.

Still, even this assignment I remember not taking very seriously. I mean, what did it matter? It didn’t, really. Not to me. Not then. And I’m confident I put down some ridiculous amount to spend on entertainment, whatever that might entail. I was buying records and going to concerts and parties, at the time, would I still be doing the same thing as a grown-up bachelor? I had no idea. Nor did I much care. It all seemed fairly silly.

Bachelor Living was what we then called a “bird course.” Which, I suppose, meant even a bird could pass the thing, and really that was the goal. To not think too hard. Have fun. And pass.

I can’t help but think Bachelor Living was an odd vestige of the ‘60s or ‘70s, back when kids went to “Civics” class. Or maybe that was the back in the ‘50s? At any rate, in the early 1980s, when I was in high school, the course stood out as an odd duck.

Now that I’m fifty-four, though, I can actually see the course being of some use. Although, if I were teaching it, I’d have the students — and this was a classroom of guys, back then, all guys — reading useful, practical books like A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis or Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart. Books about the hardships a bachelor might face later in life. Lewis’s slim book would have been perfect, come to think of it — he was, after all, a bachelor for a great many years before he found love quite late in life. And yes, he came to know the pleasures of love and marriage — that great feast of love, as I’ve heard some writer call it, although he wasn’t afforded much time at the table; the “banquet” was cruelly snatched away from him after a very short time. Even if we weren’t old or mature enough to appreciate the beauty, terror, and rawness of A Grief Observed, we’d surely have remembered it and perhaps come back to it later in life.

Or a grim, gritty, and sometimes amusing book about growing up, like Tobias Wolff’s beautifully written memoir This Boy’s Life — that would have gone over quite well, I think. It is brilliant, eloquently written, and entertaining, after all. Yes, that might have held out attention rather well, back then. And my guess is even our poor, dear Mrs. Hearn — and she truly was quite a lovely teacher, doting and patient and motherly — would have enjoyed reading that book.

I just thought of a snippet of lyrics to a song I loved back then. These ones from John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Check It Out”:

Goin’ to work on Monday
(Check it out)
Got yourself a family
(Check it out)
All utility bills have been paid
You can’t tell your best buddy that you love him

It’s that last line that strikes me. It just popped into my head, thinking about my high school days. And it makes me wonder: Why didn’t we learn about the importance of male friendships? How to develop and nurture those friendships, and how to be open and honest with our feelings? Quite seriously, this sort of thing is vital to a bachelor, at any stage in life, really. It’s vital for all men, I would argue. Married men, too. I think just talking about male friendships, about expressing deep feelings and emotions, would have been of tremendous value. And if only a handful of kids took it seriously, that would be enough. It would have been worth it. And we sure did like talking about song lyrics back then.

At the time, I took no lessons from that Bachelor Living class. Not really. None that I was aware of, anyway. We all passed, and flew off like birds, I suppose. But now that I think back on it, maybe I did learn something, lessons that just took many years to understand. Simple ones, like: Be kind to your teachers. And, sure, have some fun and enjoy the free ice cream, but if someone is teaching you how to make lasagna, listen up. (A good homemade lasagna is a delicacy!) And it’s almost a life certainty that you will one day need to sew a button on a shirt, so be thankful when someone shows you how, and pay attention.

I almost wish I could go back.

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