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Using Patrick Swayze’s career as a metaphor, describe the progression
of your adult life.
Much like
his character Ace Johnson in Skatetown, USA, the 1979 teen comedy, I started
as a youth full of potential, but far from my dreams. Sure, I did not
have the moves or the hair of Ace Johnson, but my passion for life could
not be contained by a simple strut. As a young man, perhaps I did not
think of myself as anything more than a young Ace Johnson type, but I,
just like Patrick Swayze, was destined for more.
Soon, I found myself an outsider, cast aside by grunge and cynicism. Swayze,
at this age, was actually in “The Outsiders” playing Darry
Curtis. He was not the smartest or the wealthiest, but he had heart and
he would do anything for a young Ralph Macchio or C. Thomas Howell –
even if it meant rumbling with the rich kids in a muddy field. My own
rumbles were internal, but afterwards I felt no less triumphant, for my
inner demons were far more formidable than a bunch of kids in cardigans.
I was ready for anything. Swayze was ready to fight the Russians in Red
Dawn or, as I like to call it, the dawn of Swayze. Continuing with his
tough-guy persona, Patrick was now fighting World War III in the mountains
of the central United States. Nobody cared if it was completely outrageous
that we would be attacked in the center of our country or that high school
kids would be the pillar upon which the very foundation of our freedom
rested. Me? I, of course, do not have anything as glamorous as a primal
victory scream of “Wolverines!” but I was battling finance
classes and, on my bike, the mountains of western Virginia.
In an instant, things were different. I was a grown man, sensitive, goal-oriented.
Swayze was evolving into a double threat (a triple threat if you count
the power-mullet) in Dirty Dancing. He was not letting anyone back Baby
into a corner. He was more than a young tough. He and, dare I say, America
were approaching new levels of success, new levels of Swayze. I was more
than a young kid with jokes and books. I was out in the world, working
and learning about how to make sound financial decisions based on limited
information. At night, I learned about the Thomas Jefferson-John Adams
correspondence. Just as Patrick could cut the rug, I read about two of
our nation’s best verbal dancers!
There was a buzz inside of me, confidence brimming from my physical-self.
I moved west. There was a buzz inside Hollywood. We were to witness a
well-rounded, romantic Swayze, a Swayze that transcended the very bounds
of life. His love for Demi in Ghost was enough to bend the laws of science.
I was twenty-seven, living in San Francisco and falling in love with a
very wonderful woman. She was and is helping me realize my own potential.
Last year she was accepted into a Physician Assistant program here in
Southern California. A long distance relationship was not for me and,
besides, to complete the metaphor of Swayze, it was necessary for me to
move to the place where we as a people reached the height of our collective
Swayze.
In retrospect, many people now look at Point Break as a Keanu Reeves action-thriller,
but this movie was far more than that. It was Swayze who brought Reeves
from teen bumbler into the realm of action thrills in the first place.
This movie represents the pinnacle of Swayze. It was Swayze who successfully
reversed the poles of Hollywood, turning Nick Nolte into the poor man’s
Gary Busey, if only for a moment. I have yet to reach the heights of my
personal Swayze, but I believe by attending Darden I will catch the waves
of success.
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