James H. Clark

  b. 1944 | American entrepreneur

At The Bottom

— 1961

Clark had a chip on his shoulder and gained a reputation as a troublemaker.

Trouble seemed to find Jim Clark wherever he happened to be; when it didn’t, Clark sought it out on his own.  He had grown up in a poor family in Plainview, Texas.  Abandoned by his father at a young age, Clark had a chip on his shoulder and  gained a reputation as a troublemaker.  At times, his misbehavior was relatively harmless, as when he smuggled a skunk into a school dance.  At other times, his misadventures were more dangerous.  Once, for example, he set off a small bomb on a school bus; another time, he set of a string of firecrackers inside another student’s locker, a prank that nearly caused a fire.  When he was a junior, he swore at a teacher in class, telling her to “go to hell” after she upbraided him for dodging his assignment for the day.  He received an out-of-school suspension; rather than come back, he decided he’d had enough, and dropped out to enlist in the Navy.  At training camp, Clark continued to act out.  Given an aptitude test for math, he filled in all the optical scan bubbles for every question and was reprimanded; shipped off to sea for nine months, he faced constant bullying and humiliation from his shipmates and superiors, who spared few opportunities to let him know how stupid he was.  Clark seethed, vowing to avenge his treatment somehow.