So, when I was in Kindergarten, we had some testing that I have since forgotten, but the results of which I remember to this day. There were 7 of us (me, Jerry, Roger, John, Jeff, Gloria and Kelly) who were judged as “Gifted”. We were brought up on stage in an evening assembly, with all the parents and teachers there, and allowed to demonstrate the things that showed us as gifted.

So from that moment on, we had been sprinkled with the fairy dust of gifted. We were together in all the advanced classes, we were expected to be the best, and we were. When we in High School, the 7 of us were still together in an experimental Calculus class  they had devised for us (and about 4 others who were also gifted, but not from our grade school). All of us went to college, the dullards among us only got a BS (that would be me) in Engineering. Out of the 7 of us we had 4 Engineers, 1 PhD, 2 company VPs, 1 Company owner, two Double majors and one Doll maker(Some fall into more than one category). I kept up with most for 20 years or so, then realized I was the only one calling the others and allowed them to slip over the horizon.

But, I always wondered, what made us successful (for the most part)? Was it the label of “gifted”, was it going through all the high level classes together, and having each other to force the others to excel to keep up (Roger always got it first, I called John so much one time I got his father (who was also John and sounded just like his son) and had him working on an Algebra problem for an hour before he figured out who I was (he was a programmer so it wasn’t terribly out of character)). Or was it something else?

I will always believe it was my father’s influence. But it’s an interesting question…