Great Expectations

In my high school days at Kimball Union Academy, my teachers often commented that "Jimmy needs to try harder" and "Jimmy is smart enough, he just doesn't apply himself."  Now, mind you, that was sixty-some-odd years ago and I'd like to think that in those interim years I've been able to apply myself with enough vigor to at least merit the diploma that the Headmaster handed me on the sunny day in early June, 1960.

I obviously didn't apply myself at  Northeastern University, or else I'd now have a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management.  I really didn't apply myself very well in the Air Force schooling, getting by with enough to pass, but even today, I fear I never really understood what happened when you varied the amount of voltage applied to a grid in a vacuum tube or what the real difference was between NPN and PNP transistors.  The Air Force, as an employer, though, saw that while I didn't fully understand why a particular amount of current should be read at a certain test point, I had a real good idea of what the ramifications might be if I didn't replace the circuit board when the reading didn't match that required in the Technical Order.

You see, my first assignment in the Air Force was as a Launch and Checkout Equipment Technician on Titan I intercontinental ballistic missiles.  If Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev had an inkling that I (and others like me) were not smart enough to find failed circuit boards and replace them to keep our Titan I fleet on alert, the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis might have been totally different.  President John F. Kennedy, Secretary Robert Strange McNamara (aka Uncle Bob, no matter that we probably weren't related),  General Maxwell Taylor,  General Curtis LeMay, and Colonel Julius Pickoff all knew that we'd replace those boards, and that gave Mr Kennedy the ability to stand up to Mr Khruschev.

I spent another 25 years or so in the Air Force, and to their credit, my superiors saw that while I'd probably never fully understand electronic theory, I was smart enough to recognize the results of not keeping our equipment operational, so they promoted me and made me a supervisor, effectively taking the soldering iron and screwdrivers away from me.

What brought all that on?  Would you believe an article in Time Magazine about Charles Dickens?  I read the article last week and a saw reference to Great Expectations.  At the aforementioned academy, one Lionel Mosher introduced me to Charles Dickens, the character Pip,  and the theme of internal struggle with one's own conscience.

I have a tool in my little home office that was totally unavailable in my high school days - a personal computer.  After reading the article about Dickens, I sat at my PC and dredged up a digital rendition of his novel, Great Expectations.  I began reading Pip's story.  In the first ten chapters, I've come to realize that I owe Lionel Mosher an apology.  I recognize none of the story except the name Pip, and until I read the first sentence in the book, I had no recollection of where the name came from.  For the uninformed, the lad's real name was Philip Pirrip, but as a child, he had trouble pronouncing his full name and shortened it to Pip and the name stuck.

Not only has my computer enabled me to read Great Expectations, it has given me the ability to click to a search engine and look up words Dickens used to see what in the dickens he was talking about.  In my high school days, that would have entailed putting the book down in such a manner as to not lose my place, pick up my Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (now, fifty-one years later, I still have that very same dictionary, with my name inside the cover in a cursive script that I'd never use today) and look up whatever word I didn't know.   Surely you don't think a teenager who didn't apply himself would have gone to that much trouble.


This afternoon while reading my on-line copy of Great Expectations, I came across a reference to pudding that I didn't understand.  The sentence, in part, read, ". . . one box-tree that had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new growth at the top of it. . . "   Surely that wasn't a reference to chocolate or tapioca puddings that I've known which are usually housed in a cup or bowl of some sort and are flat on top.  If you were to look it up in my New Collegiate Dictionary, you'd see, 
"1. A piece of intestine stuffed with seasoned chopped meat, or the like, and boiled.  
2.  A dessert having flour or some other cereal as a foundation, with, added eggs, milk, fruit, sugar, spices, etc."  
neither of which conjure up any vision of what Pip's Box-tree actually resembled, unless he meant it to look like a piece of sausage or a bowl of tapioca pudding.


If you would look pudding up on the Internet in, say, Wikipedia, not only would you get a full page of explanation, you'd get photographs and drawings, and Dickens' intent would immediately become abundantly clear.  He really meant dome shaped, such as one often sees in landscaping treatment of boxwood.  Oh, yeah.  Boxwood.  Box-tree.  I get it.   I applied myself and figured it out.  


See, Mr Mosher?  I applied myself.   Why are you due an apology?  In order to pass your class, I had to read and answer questions about Great Expectations, but in reading it now, I am convinced that I never did read it in high school.  How did I pass your class?  Was there a Classics Illustrated version of Great Expectations?  You bet there was, Issue No. 43.  Did I use it to pass your English class?  To be most honest, I do not remember.  I've found it on line today and checked for the reference to a tree trimmed in a pudding shape, but it wasn't mentioned.


You know, that Dickens fellow sure could write a powerful yarn.  I'm enjoying reading it, especially knowing I've already passed the class that required it.