When I was in the 7th and 8th grade I started to read with a passion. I had already discovered the joy of reading, even if it just had been the headlines on the newspapers that I was delivering daily in the neighborhood, but by the end of 7th grade it became my life.

7th and 8th grade for many can be a staggering awkward time that is fraught with all kinds of social minefields. It certainly was for me as I started to learn just how stark the differences could be among me and my fellow students. I noticed how the smart kids with their newly honed study habits were already setting the fiery pace that would bring them lifelong academic success.

Those with a penchant for the trumpet, drum, flute, or fiddle, were blossoming into fine young musicians while the athletes were making their mark on the court, field, or diamond. Naturally, the cool kids had already taken their reserved places at the top of the school social heap. For those like me who, for this reason, or that, did not seem to fit clearly into any of these groups, life was particularly challenging if I might be allowed the modern term for something that is bloody awful.

Morning band practice was a good example of this. Because I was quite terrible at playing the trombone, it was a pure nightmare of embarrassment and shame. Once school itself started though, I found I could be in a different, and safer, world altogether by burying my nose deeply into anything that I could find in the library—as long as it did not have to do with the normal school subjects being taught. In lieu of listening to the sage words of the teachers during class, I instead poured over the books hidden behind my notebook. From there I could enjoy 50 minutes of pure escape.

Being cut from average cloth, my reading material was certainly not what the future great and the good of my year-group were reading. I think of today’s brightest bulbs who are roughly the same age as me: former President Obama, the famous author and speaker Jon Meacham, and the diplomat Nicholas Burns just to take a three examples. I imagine them at age 12 mulling over such deep works as the writings of Thomas Aquinas and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. Of course all while imbibing a steady diet of Locke, Hobbes, Bentham, Rousseau, and the Austrian school economists. Although a bit older, even the basketball great Kareem Abdul Jabar was already well into some pretty serious stuff: Jabar’s reading list

I can imagine these gentlemen (and many women too!) had by the 8th grade already perfected the flawless measured and sonorous speaking tones for which they would later be well known—you know—the types who speak in whole paragraphs instead of mere words or sentences. They were on a fast-track in life and were wasting no time in leaving the station.

I was quite keen on the Three Investigators series which starred Jupiter Jones. Of rather rotund build, Jupiter was an exceptionally rational young man and I was transfixed as he would lead his chums in solving the most vexing mysteries—all the while facing danger from the criminal elements. Jupiter had an astounding vocabulary and mimicked voices well enough to pass himself off on the telephone as an adult.

Being a burgeoning nerd, I savored his use of language and eagerly looked up those words that I did not know. It was here that I learned such gems as indubitably, presume, and interlocutor. Now, before you think that I am the absolute nerdiest person who ever lived, it was such vocabulary lessons that were the only thing that kept the SATs from being a catastrophe for me. I had picked up enough of this multi-syllabic lingo so that I could answer those beloved questions such as verisimilitude is to lacuna as irredentist is to what? Maybe not your idea of fun, but much more interesting than the pre-algebra that the school teachers were offering up in class.

It was through the Chip Hilton series though that I really became acquainted with what average means and the role that it would play in my life to come. Chip Hilton was the fictional sports creation of the very real author Clare Bee. Bee had been an outstanding coach, eventually earning entry into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and from this perch he knew his way around a good sports story. While coaching, Bee noticed a scrappy young player for Seton Hall by the name of Bob Davies. Davies was a court standout and was as much of a gentleman off the court as he was a fierce competitor on it—in other words the perfect model for the fictional Chip Hilton who also could, seemingly, do no wrong.

The 24 Hilton books take Chip from the football field, baseball stadium, and basketball court in high school on to collegiate glory as a Statesman at the State University. Since sports such as soccer had not made their widespread appearance yet on campuses, the books are limited to these three sports—but no worries as Chip excels in all three of course! The books are full of such 1950’s language such as “Frosh” to describe freshmen and the benign nicknames of Soapy, Speed, and Biggie. There is always a subplot or two in the books and Chip even has a love interest named Mitzi, but the real action was the competition. Chip, of course, takes this all in hand and deals with any and all adversity while leading his sometimes flagging teammates to championship glory.

Now for a keen and eager young athlete reading these books they were no doubt inspirational. Chip abounded in both natural leadership characteristics as well as gifted sporting skills—no matter what the sport. The gods had favored him and it was almost predestined that his sporting foes would eventually fall in defeat. There were setbacks of course, but really only to showcase Chip’s sterling character in overcoming adversity. If you were athletically gifted then Chip was your ready-made role model. But for a reader like me the stories were not inspirational but rather sobering, even worrisome, introductions to reality. Sure they were immensely enjoyable, but I lacked in exactly those areas in which Chip was so richly blessed.

So instead of being able to imitate his all-around excellence, I looked at the other characters in the book to see what I had in common with them. What about the members of the other team that were going down in defeat? What about those whom Chip considered second-rate by not giving it their all or who could not execute the athletic feats as he did? In other words, what about the average guys?

All of us average folk go through this meeting with reality at some point—some sooner than others. This just happened to be my time and it was when I learned that a certain, almost fixed, percentage of our age-group are destined for good, if not great, things. Their skills and talents were not mine and never would be. Yet in aspiring to be gentlemen and gentlewomen we should never begrudge the great their gifts even if we will always be starkly aware of the cleft between them and us. It does not mean they are more virtuous or anything like that, but rather that they are different in some very striking ways.

One, or at most just a few select gents, would get all the power, wealth, and the multiple wives. The rest, and I do mean the rest of humanity had to take up stations in life as slaves, servants, or as very obedient subjects in the realm of the King….and that is if they were lucky and not members of a tribe that was being overrun and slain. In this world there was not much room for self-actualization or self-expression to be sure. Ok, perhaps I simplify the great theological texts here, but it seemed to be rather a zero sum game to me.

Fortunately these days it does not quite matter what our station in life is. We can pursue our lives in peace and quiet. We do not have to spend nearly so much time worrying about who and what others are and have. We are subject, more or less, to no man. As I moved through high school and college I was surprised myself that I was never greatly jealous of those who had gifts. Envious? Sure, who would not envy those who could play the trumpet with such skill, swim or run so fast, or grasp the details of advanced chemistry or quantum mechanics? Instead I admired the gifted for what they could do. In fact, I learned that they, by putting their gifts on display—whether in an academic paper or on the sports field or in the concert hall—enriched my life simply by allowing me to be witness to their accomplishments.

This journey of appreciation started for me with those stories of Chip Hilton. He was, for me, simply too good to be any realistic model but there were other paths… many others. By the way, once a geek always a geek. I still very much enjoying what those words verisimilitude, lacuna, and irredentist mean. Hey, it was all I had going at the time and some will argue that maybe it still is all I have! Keep being average!