Never let schooling get in the way of your education

For as long as I can remember, my father devotedly and incorrectly recited this Mark Twain quote as a means to rationalize playing hooky for the sake of a higher enlightenment. I have never complained.

My first memory of the justification was in the fourth grade when my dad dropped me off at school several hours late. The Coho salmon fishing in the fog off Possession Point had been far too hot to leave for such an inconvenience as school. I was curious and surprised, but had no objections when he solemnly explained that there are far more important experiences to be had than sitting in a desk being talked at. We did nearly the same thing the next day, too.

In high school, I once missed homecoming week to go elk hunting. Innumerable windy days drew my buddy Todd and me from lectures to our duck swamp. My friend Courtney and I once showed up an hour and 15 minutes late to an hour-and-50-minute chemistry class because of an inconvenient tide. One time, the principal walked me into my second period class to tell the teacher that I was excused. Neither of us felt it necessary to explain that he and I had been out lingcod fishing with my dad all morning.

In college, I was introduced to the saying, "I feel bad for anyone who skipped skiing to go to class today," for when a powder dump at Schweitzer simply could not be missed in good conscience. When studying abroad in Italy junior year, I bailed on the second half of dead week plus the weekend before finals to go explore Ireland, on a whim, by myself.  I missed the first whole week of my senior year because of a late running season for my commercial salmon fishing job in Alaska. Recently, my roommates could not believe how much homework time I gave up to work in the basement on a European skull mount for the bull elk I shot November 6th. This coming semester promises to be rife with steelhead-related absences.

Now, as an aspiring outdoor journalist nearing graduation from Gonzaga, I see even more clearly that the education I have received outside the classroom has been far more valuable than that which I received inside. No writing class has quite measured up to the adventures I have survived and the wonders I have seen. Though an occasionally necessary evil, school is often a hindrance to what really matters. n

Sam Lungren is a senior.