College Days
I've been going through the yearbooks from my college days. Those were fun times. In fact, too much fun. I went to college to become a preacher, thinking I'd gotten "The Call". I guess God got the wrong number because by the end of the semester, I had left the denomination and the training. I had three choices of colleges to study for the ministry and chose the smallest. Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth, Texas had an enrollment smaller than my younger sister's high school, a little under 1600. It had a beautiful campus on the east side of town with the main street still made of bricks. My dad set me up with a checking account to handle my expenses and I used it,,,used it too much. I went wild, smoking which I had done in secret while at home; buying all kinds of junk food; going out for pizza; buying clothes and fancy cigarette lighters and cases; going to movies; and other things. Did all kinds of stuff except what I was there for,,studying. But, it was quite a shock to me when I came home one weekend and my dad said I no longer had the account and would be put on an allowance and if it ran out, tough. By the end of the semester, I was on scholastic probation and had changed my major to speech-drama, a major thought then to be on the fairy side. After the second semester,in which a run-in with a coffee cup put me on crutches, my parents decided, rightly, that I was too immature to be away from home and would enroll in a junior college in a small town north of Waco. The same pattern transferred to the junior college. It was the Viet Nam war era and every college guy had to take test to stay in college. I missed passing by one point and joined the air force. I didn't make it through basic because I was crazy. I went back to TWC for the spring semester and didn't do much better. I went to work for my dad in his store. That led to a chance conversation with a customer that led to my career in radio, I paid for the training and did well. My college days were fun, but misspent. My parents were patient,,far more than I deserved.
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