Found it!

I, for one, have never studied chess books and have no knowlege of openings.  This is reflected, I'm sure, in my rating  (1547).   I wonder what the highest rating is of a player of similar background.

Someone should start a "Circle of Ignorance" analagous to the "Circle of Trust" http://www.chess.com/groups/view/circle-of-trust-otb. "Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is gone." — Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)

I doubt that you have "no knowledge of openings", not if you've ever played chess before.  What you have is personal knowledge and experience.  I myself have only studied them in a very limited way (no books, a bit of online tutorial stuff, and self-teaching by actual playing) and I'm around the 1700 mark right now. 

I'm not saying there isn't more that can be learned from rigorous study, but one shouldn't disparage other methods of learning at the same time.

My rating was 1770 on here before I began studying openings (and perhaps a bit stronger in reality). Granted you know the basic principles and a few traps, studying openings and memorizing lines more than a few moves deep is not that important at the level where you're still hanging pieces to basic tactics and combinations. You will gradually learn more about your openings as you play them and review your games for mistakes. Granted, there are some exceptions... such as 1-minute "chess".