Mech--
The two most important courses I ever took were Latin and typing. Both have facilitated my communication abilities over the years and have both brought me much enjoyment in my years of life (almost 3 times yours, but...)
The other course of instruction that was important to me was the family dinner. Both of my parents were journalists, and we lived a life of words and newspapers. At the time we were blessed with four daily newspapers, the Washington Post, Star, Daily News, and the Alexandria Gazette (the latter was the paper my mother worked for.)
Every evening at dinner we'd pass around the papers and talke about what was in them and why it was there. Television news was not allowed and we ate purposely at 6 so we had a good excuse to avoid the crap that was usually foisted off as news.
Interesting in one respect because my father many years before had turned down a job in TV that was then offered to some guy named Walter Cronkite. But the reason for turning it down was that, according to my father, "There's no future in this television thing. Oh, dear, would you remind me to call my broker tomorrow and buy more stock in Acme Buggywhip?"
