| Oro Mitchell |
| From the mixed blessings file... |
| Oro was a Mormon. Quite charismatic, he could also personify the true meaning of grim authority. Normally he was our auto shop teacher. I loved him there. I still remember his lectures in great detail. He went over each test question in detail prior to each test. I still remember much of it, verbatim. Simply put, he was hillarious. We rebuilt everything in his class: carbs, distributors, transmissions, you name it. He had V8 engines on shopping-cart bases. We'd wheel 'em outside to run 'em after a tune up. Oro was super strict with pot smokers. His class was after lunch. And he made sure to get into everyone's faces. He claimed to be alergic to the smell. So he had desks in the rear of the shop, just for inebriates. It was like a dunce cap. Two guys in particular always ended up back there. I think it was Salem and Rovegno, but I may be mistaken. Oro had every tool under the sun, in a secured tool room. We were each issued uniquely numbered tags on our first day of class. An attendant would hang our tag where the tool belongs whenever we borrowed one. Everything Oro did was for a reason. The previous generation of students (baby boomers) were much tougher than us. He was hardend, perhaps to the point of being jaded, by the time we arrived. It didn't bug me a bit. I learned a lot about physics from him. He was able to get concepts like magnetic permeability across to us students with hillarious metaphors. His rendition of permeability had magnetism running barefoot and having to choose between a path through blackberries or another path through sand. Blackberries represented air. Sand represented iron. The outrageousness of the mental images he conjured up made them stick. His facial expressions were so intense, he should have been a cartoon character. |
| My worst nightmare was realized when Oro stood-in as our metal shop teacher for a semester. For some reason he singled out my projects for public ridicule, and he would not let up. I knew what I was doing so I didn't back down. He always scoffed at my plans, saying they'd never work. I enlightened him about tools, accessories, and techniques I was bringing from home for each procedure. This made him genuinely angry. I don't think Oro ever noticed how quickly my projects went, or even that I'd succeeded. He just couldn't wait to apprehend my incursions. He probably thinks I was rightly thwarted. All I know is my blood-pressure skyrocketed with each of his inquisitions. Little did I know, I was making a bad habit by fending him off. It was "tough love." He was teaching me how the real world works for peons: being right is no excuse. Being a born rebel, my mantra became "make sure you are right--and then justify to the fullest extent." Later I got fired from a dish-washer job at The Red Pepper in Palo Alto CA, for using that line of thinking. Owner Howard Holbine explained that the boss is always right. I saw him recently and we both laughed our asses off. He couldn't believe he did that. I suppose I had to get through the process of becoming submissive before I could be right and congenial too. That's what Howard was probably after. In another light, standing up to Oro was a healthy experience, however painful. I'd been bullied all my life on subjective grounds. This was the first time anyone bullied me regarding technical maters without checking the facts first. I guess it's pretty standard for the power-hungry set. So it's good I got started young. By the time I was heading big programs, I was standing up to ten challengers at a time, all of them domineering and clueless. Somehow I'd still get my way on every count. After one such exchange, ETM's CEO caught me in the hallway and asked how I got so smart. I admitted I learned everything I know by screwing it up first. And I remember each of those heartaches ever so vividly. Proposals suggesting I retrace those footsteps drum up all the bad memories again. I simply explain what went awry. Nobody wants to take responsibility, especially for a boondoggle. If my idea is simple and I will take responsibility, it's a done deal. They back off. |