K is for Milan Kovacovic

Back in the day, when I was virtually carefree, I was prone to squandering my opportunities. Milan Kovacovic was one of the few individuals who knew me enough or had the right approach for someone living like I was. He looked me in the eye and told me I had to "try harder". As I recall it went over my head at the time. But here I am almost thirty years later and while I remember beaucoup de francais, or however it should be written, what I remember more is him saying that to me.

He was right. I wish I had a "do over", as my kids say. All these wise older folks may be right when they say that "youth is wasted on the young...". No doubt he has no memory of me. I was a "nothing" student by my own admission, intent on enjoying freedom and girls and living on my own. I should have taken a year off and learned the hard way about the importance of education. I did do that a few years later and it did teach me and I did actually come back to UMD and achieved the best grades of my time at UMD, but then I left again never to return. So.....Professor Kovacovic, I hope you have a Google alert set for your name. Thank you for those well intended words somewhere between fall of 84 and spring of 88. I still remember them. You were right. The more you put in, the more you get out.

He wrote his memoirs. While I am not prone to reading this type of work, I do look at this and read what there was in this article and marvel at the lives others have lived in the places and times they were in. Here I am in this plain old culture of the U.S. at its peak. Safe, stable, ongoing times of plenty, no war in my lifetime that affected me (although I did dutifully go to the USPS and register like I was supposed to as an 18 year old). What he remembers from his youth in WWII-era Europe is far different from mine.