Thinking Over My So-Called Career

Up with the chickens Friday and off to A.G. Currie Middle School in Tustin for Career Day. All in a day’s work, but well worth it if the students are attentive and entertaining, which my three classes were. Somebody’s doing something right with the kids out there.

And yet, do you know the feeling when everything goes right except for one teensy little thing? You know how you tend to dwell on that?

So it was that of all the great questions the students showered on me Friday morning, the one that echoes in my head is this one: “Have you met any famous people?�

Let’s see, kids, I’ve just told you of my 30-some years in the news business and how each week is filled with unexpected, interesting things, and you want to know if during all these years I’ve met any famous people.

OK. Good question. And my answer to that is ... give me a second here ... how much time do I have?

As the clock ticked and the students inched forward in their seats, waiting for the journalist to drop some names on them -- Tiger Woods, maybe; Lindsay Lohan, perhaps; Arnold the governor -- they heard nothing.

“Not really,� I said.

I slipped in the nugget about interviewing the 2003 national Monopoly champion. The students stared back, seemingly unmoved.

Had I not been panicking, I could have told them I once interviewed a local pet detective. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Ace Ventura. Nor, of course, have I ever met Jim Carrey. I could have mentioned the guy who did the Tony the Tiger voice for the cereal commercials. Somehow, I don’t think he would have registered with them, either.

Let me address this next question to adults: Have you ever felt like your entire working life was wasted?

The Currie students were much too polite to say it aloud, but I had no trouble reading their minds: “Dude, your career sounds pretty lame. What have you been doing for these last 30 years? How about sending somebody from sports or entertainment next time?�

They would have had a point. To them, no doubt, this is the age of celebrity, an era when the news media cover the comings and goings of movie stars and jocks with the same gusto as they do real news. How is it, they probably were wondering, that I completely missed that train?

How to tell them, without humbling myself, that my sights had been set somewhat lower? Could I talk to them with any credibility about the virtues of covering a four-hour meeting of the Westminster school board, when they were thinking it was way cooler to be the guy at the paper who reviewed “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie�?

Could I give them solid advice on priorities in life when mine had been so obviously misplaced?

“Do you ever feel like quitting?� one student asked.

The question came out of left field, but now, in replaying the morning, I think it may have been asked after my confession to not knowing any famous people they’d heard of. The student questioner may well have been looking deeply into my soul at that moment.

Students in all three classes applauded my presentations. I now realize it was the polite applause given the broken-down prizefighter who stumbles toward his dressing room after another pummeling in the ring, admired for trying but clearly recognized as someone whose career path was misguided.

In the end, the students helped me much more than I helped them. Instead of spending my time talking to school board members, I should have been tracking down people who have appeared on “The Bachelor.�

It was a great Career Day. I don’t know about the Currie students, but I’m reassessing everything.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at [email protected]. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.