Santa Fe

 This would be 1965 from October to May of 1966 So, I was 17 and then 18 during this time. 

Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Because I sort of "Grew up too fast" partly because of starting working at age 10 and starting dating girls at age 15 and by 16 buying my own car "a 1956 Ford Station Wagon" I found myself wanting to drop out of High School by age 17 because it just seemed sort of ridiculous to me because I had just grown up too fast from work and dating a 21 year old girl when I was 16 years old.

However, we all grow up in all sorts of ways. So, though we might think we are completely grown up at 16 because we are dating someone 21 and we are driving our own car that we paid for with money from working, often we are not as grown up as we think we are.

My parents knew this and so when I chose to "drop out of high school" they offered to send me to a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico which was connected to our church. I couldn't take my car there because they had had trouble with kids doing this away from their parents before but, I wouldn't have to work at a job and I had friends going there and it sounded like fun. So, going there looking back from now was one of the wisest things my parents could have done for me.

It kept me from making some bad mistakes in my life and also led me to going to college as well as making many more new friends.

Another thing happened also. I had been going to public schools all my life and having to deal with threats and potential violence all the time whereas in this school I was the oldest biggest strongest person there and I was looked up to and since I'm a "Gentle Giant" and kind by nature unless attacked this was a fairly idyllic situation for me to experience where I didn't have to deal with threats from gang members or car clubbers or other people who were not going anywhere with their lives at all.

I sort of knew all the kids in this private school were going to college and were not troublemakers or they wouldn't have been there in the first place.

So, this private school was a stepping stone for my entrance into college and a life much better than many people I had met in my life.

It's amazing how just a few decisions make the difference between life and death or a good life or a bad life in one's life. IF you wind up making just a few good decisions your life can be really amazing as mine mostly has been.

However, this for me at least was a boarding school so I didn't have a TV set and only a radio but I did have my own room which was a part of a converted garage. The people running the boarding part of the school were from Europe (Belgium) I think and both had been in a concentration camp there in Europe during world war II. The father was a doctor and the mother ran the lodging and feeding part of this arrangement. They had two children then a boy who was 14 and a girl who was 12. The father and the boy did a lot of experiments on electronics making oscilloscopes and things like this in their workshop when the doctor had time off on weekends. I was also interested in anything electrical or electronic too simply because my father had trained me as an electrician with his business summers from the time I was 12 years old. So, I had worked various jobs in my spare time since I was 10 years old already. Like I said I was pretty grown up then at 17 especially compared to most children these days who might not reach where I was in emotional maturity then until they were 22 to 25 years old.

One day one of the girls in the boarding part of the school had a seizure because she had an ulcer. I was the only one around big enough and strong enough to pick her up and put her in the car to be driven to the hospital. Eventually, because of this she had a thing for me and so since she traveled back to Los Angeles with me on El Capitan (the train was called that then) we got to be closer because we were watching out for each other on the 17 to 21 hour train ride from just south of Santa Fe to Los Angeles where we both were from. She was 16 and I was 17 years old. The problem with this was that I already had a steady girlfriend back in Los Angeles who had graduated the previous year from this private school and was now in college there in Los Angeles. Being young I didn't really know how to deal with all of this emotionally either and it became quite confusing for me at the time I remember.

I think the 16 year old eventually married a guy in the Air Force when she was 17 years old. Something like that. This was the way things often could go back then. So, I continued on with my 1 year older girlfriend in college in Los Angeles but I was sort of ashamed that I had also dated this younger girl at the private school. I didn't know how to deal with all this at the time really.

Looking back it's all laughable to me in some ways but then it was all deadly serious stuff. It's strange how what things mean in one era of your life mean something entirely different at other stages of your life.

But, the one thing I can agree on regarding all the many viewpoints I have had between then and now is that going to this private school moved me towards college and a much better life.

So, going to this private school for my senior year in High school completely changed the trajectory of my life to a much better place than it might have been otherwise.

By God's Grace