Fall and Spring semesters of 1972/73, my first year out of high school, still living with my parents, I attended Golden West Jr. College. It changed my life.
I was a less than enthusiastic college student, new to the community- lost half the time just trying to navigate around rural north Huntington Beach- filled with oil wells, truck farms and long stretches of nothing but wetlands and beach. Childhood friends were scattered across the country in four year schools. My father had just left the church where he’d been Pastor my entire life. My two older brothers were newly married and my younger sister, now the new kid in class, a junior in high school, had her own worries.
I was lonely.
Unexpectedly, I jumped right in with both feet and did a bunch of stuff all on my own… not typical behavior for me. I joined the soccer and rugby team- having no clue what either sport required –thought I’d give it a shot. Never an athlete in school, but always involved in sports: YMCA (Gray Y), church teams and I was one of those kids who enjoyed P.E. class. When the junior college coach assured us that if we went out for the team- we’d make it –I figured: “what’s to lose?”
I wasn’t a star- but I wasn’t the worst of the lot either. Great memories of my first feeling of running in cleats, in the mud… splashed head to toe… freezing… digging it. Incredible adrenaline rush of being chased down in rugby, taking and giving hard hits- scoring…no one came to watch our little teams. Quite certain no one in my family ever came to one of our games. Junior college sports- new ones especially –and soccer and rugby were as new as they came in ‘72/’73- don’t attract crowds. We certainly didn’t. But what fun we had together.
I took a square dancing class. That was out of left field for the preacher’s kid who grew up in a household without dancing. New to Orange County- long before the explosion of wealth and prestige it carries today –the square dance class seemed like a good place to get to meet the natives… it delivered… in social halls, city parks and so many other gathering places – I square danced… and I had fun!
My girlfriend attended a major university and her schedule only allowed for us to date one or two times a week. My square dancing class met on Wednesday nights in a room where one of the math professors, always wearing a cool cowboy shirt and encouraging us to do the same, rolled in a record player and would begin to call. As he’d call, he’d set us in squares, teach us how to greet one another, use the more experienced dancers as anchors and the clueless guys like me… looking back I think I was the only new guy…would just go along for the ride. Each night, each new move, each assigned outing to a “club” began as nerve wrenching adventures that always seemed to end up with lots of laughing, sweaty bodies, cookies and punch. It was a stretch for me. It was so much fun.
Don’t know what dad was going through during those years… honestly, don’t remember asking – I must have, we’re a pretty open family – just don’t remember all the specifics except this, he wasn’t making much money. We were living in a great big, brand new house just between Huntington and Newport Beach- and I qualified for grant money –not cash money… certainly not a scholarship… but the kind that if I took a job in the library on campus, they’d give me a paycheck. Embarrassed, even still I jumped at the opportunity.
My love of libraries deepened at Golden West. I learned to bind books- a lost art in the age of eBooks. The Dewey Decimal System became second nature. The librarians became my friends… and they let me order whatever books I wanted to read…still remember holding a fresh copy of “Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque. Sharing it with anyone who’d read the sad love story… then watching the old movie- that F. Scott Fitzgerald –wrote the screenplay for and crying… So much of my life was spent in libraries.
Today, can’t remember the last time I took the time to cross the threshold of one… much less to savor the wealth of knowledge and earn my very own study table through hours of devotion. Time… The skills I learned and honed working in that little library carried me through so many other libraries at great universities and gave me the confidence to research, explore and stay just a step ahead… long before the age of Google.
Political Science: where I was challenged to take on a project –and studied the slaughter of dolphins while catching albacore tuna in nets… and joined so many others who were working to save their needless deaths. Geology: my lifetime passion for rocks finally found its form as Mr. Gibson opened the planet to us- I could never forget our field trip to Palos Verde Peninsula and learning about our shifting planet. Philosophy: Plato, Socrates, The Theaetetus… living a semester in that dialogue… feeling so incredibly inadequate to the task… challenged. Theatre Arts (Drama): each of us was required to write and perform a one person “show” for lack of a better word. Unbelievably, not only did I give myself to it; still remember the young passion I put into it. English 100 and the instructor who believed in me… sat with me on her own time… pushed me to discipline myself to write… (she’d hate all these little dots I freely use and the dashes I throw in whenever I want to! And the exclamation point as well), and today I can’t even remember her name.
Wish I could. She may have saved me. The “dumbbell” spelling and math classes I’d been relegated to because I came in at the last minute, without application- something one could do as a student in those freewheeling days of building a better society –were killing me. She taught me that the disciplines were not meant to restrict or confine me but to give freedom to my thoughts and imagination so that even more people could and would want to hear my voice. She worked with me when I didn’t want to work and I’m so much the better for her efforts. She believed that my voice had worth. She not only believed in me, she believed in what I was yet to become. A transformation took place within my work ethic as a student- because of her.
Joni Mitchell. I fell in love with Joni Mitchell at Golden West. Each of the library study carrels had jacks for headphones, not the little kind that pop into an mp3 player or phone, but big old RCA jacks where real music could be heard. Students had the opportunity to stop at the “media center,” so far ahead of it’s time, and request an album to be played for just their study time at just their carrel.
Needle on vinyl and Joni would reach into my soul as I listened to Ladies of The Canyon day after day and pretended to study. Morning Morgan Town, Real Good for Free, Big Yellow Taxi, Woodstock and so many other soul stirring ballads spoke to me as I prepared for whatever life might have in store. Music opened my imagination and I was invited to dream.
Two short semesters at a community college- they changed my life. I went alone. No one from the town I’d grown up in or the High School that just felt like family a few short weeks ago was there and yet somehow- the best of education happened to me –I found my way.
I believe in quality public education. I’m the product of a great public education. I remember what it was like to be that lonely kid and not to feel like I was in a candy store- taking whatever I wanted… that would come years down the line at another university… but instead, at the age of 18, feeling like someone had thrown out just the lifeline I needed to take the next step into the world of growing up. When I lost faith in myself there were people who made it their job to not only teach me- to not just plant a seed- but the reawaken that which so many great educators had given themselves fully too for so many years.
For their love, when I was lost and lonely, I’m forever grateful. Can’t imagine what my life would be today without my time at Golden West.
