I got a chuckle out of your reply, l.c. A couple or three of 'em, in fact.
Yep, you are no doubt a good bit younger if you were in grammar school 35 years ago. I'd already long since said goodbye to college and moved two or three times.
I had already developed a pretty good disdain for all things "Wall Street", but suddenly one day the proverbial light bulb flashed on in my head: you may be disgusted by these guys, but if you ever want to do better than bank interest with your money, you better learn how to play the game and start investing/trading in stocks and options.
Got pretty good at it, but never got over my distaste for the thing. Talk about over paid, self important people playing a low visibility, nearly closed game and taking advantage of the masses.......