I remember
my first day in class and an experience that had me wondering
if I was cut out to attend class with this much younger crowd.
The class was English 101, why it was labeled as an English
class, I'll never know, because we never learned any English related
subjects. Anyway, I figured I would take a low profile on this
first day, until I figured out the rules. So, I took a seat
all the way in the back of the classroom, in the corner. The
professor arrives and says "okay, everyone pair up for an awareness
study session." Not knowing what the hell an awareness study
session was, I remained seated and just observed. Well, all
these kids knew what this was all about and all the guys immediately
jumped up and paired up with some chick. They went out the
door holding hands, with one person closing their eyes and
feeling around like they were blind. By the time I figured
out what was happening, I looked around and the only person
remaining to pair up with was this long-haired hippy looking
guy. I looked at him and said "if you think I'm going to hold
hands with you and go outside and feel up a bunch of rocks,
bushes, and trees you're nuts - I'm going down to the cafeteria,
I don't know what you're going to do!" I went down to the cafeteria
and had a cup of coffee and related the incident to a couple
other older ADCOP'ers. They had a good laugh and said "welcome
to college!"
We
wore only civilian clothes, due to the anti-war and anti-military
sentiment at the time. One stupid student mouthed off to one of the
Marine ADCOP'ers one day and the Marine laid the guy out. It was beautiful
to watch, but he was ejected from the program because of it. We were
like a mini-mafia, we controlled the place! That's what they get when
they turn a bunch of sailors loose! We had our own large table in
the cafeteria that the civilian students stayed away from. Most the
students were naive liberals that wanted nothing to do with the military
- especially during the waning days of the Vietnam War. We treasured
terrorizing them as much as possible anyway.
We never had to worry about a class being full;
we always got whatever class and schedule we wanted. One of the ADCOP'ers
was dating the Dean's secretary, so we had an insider. Hell, we even
had copies of several exams (that some instructors were too lazy to
revise)! We never worried about the civilian students when competing
for a high grade, they were no competition. We only worried about
competing against another ADCOP'er if only a few A's were available.
Everyone wanted that letter of Commendation from graduating on the
Dean's list - and I got mine.
I let
my accounting professor talk me into tutoring Acounting for one
Semester, which I got extra credit for. He wanted me to do it
for a couple more semesters and I said one was enough. The kids
I was tutoring were just above a rock on the intelligence chart
and they never could understand the basic Debit and Credit concept
of accounting. I even had one young gal proposition me! Anyway,
I couldn't deal with it and said never again.
The
family had one very memorable summer, while I was attending college.
We were required to take at least two courses during summer classes.
They had the regular 3-month summer classes, an 8-week shorter session
or a 6-week (4-hrs a day, 3 days a week) accelerated session. I chose
the 6-week accelerated session and had the remaining 9-weeks to myself.
We rented a site in a campground in the San Joaquin Delta area and
spent 9-weeks boating and fishing the delta sloughs and just taking
it easy - only going in to get my paycheck every 2-weeks. It was a
great summer.
