College Culture Shock in 1966

I was raised to think like a Scientific Creationist where you believed in Science like Nicola Tesla inventing the Alternating Current who was one of my father's heros because he was an Electrical Contractor (like his father and brother before him).

So, there was this paradox many might say between this very scientific way of thinking and a Creationist viewpoint where God built the world in a few days point of view.

Then I went to college in 1966 and realized that most kids in my college Social Science Class believed in Darwin's theory of evolution. This was sort of terrifying for me at the time then at Glendale College in the greater Los Angeles area. My best friend was also attending this college to learn Jet engine Maintenance so he could join the Air Force as a Jet engine Specialist (which he did) instead of being drafted and dying on the front lines of the Viet Nam War then.

But, I was dealing with a different problem because I had already been classified as 4F because of a concussion and seizures at night from ages 10 to 15 so I wasn't going to be drafted.

But, the problem I was facing was questioning which was right? Darwinism or Creationism?

I wrestled with this for about 3 years total and finally realized that both Darwinism and Creationism were theories not laws and because they both were ONLY theories I didn't have to believe necessarily in either of them.

But, it took me dropping out of college in the late fall of 1966 because this was just too upsetting for me to deal with at the time. I'm not even completely sure I understood at the time what was happening to me I just realized that this was too overwhelming for me at the time to continue in college. I could see many of you out there having a similar experience in the 1960s or before too or even since depending upon where and when you were raised and how religious your parents were.

After working a couple of months my parents asked me to work longer to pay for my mother's operation which I did. So, I didn't return to college until fall of 1967 at this point.

The problem with this is I got used to having a lot of money because I was still living at home with my parents and I sort of got addicted to having money so I could travel on weekends with girlfriends and friends usually up to 400 miles a weekend because Gas was cheap then compared to the wages people get now. Now Gas is really really expensive compared to the minimum wage for example now. So, many people cannot travel a lot like I did all the time on weekends to the beaches, the deserts, the mountains for skiing and body surfing and board and boogie board surfing at the ocean and Scuba Diving and all the fun things you can do at the ocean or mountains or Deserts then.

So, by going all sorts of places and meeting all sorts of new people I learned things that maybe children of today don't learn as much because of how expensive cars and gas are now. I'm very grateful for the life I have lived.

I truly have lived in a Golden Age of America even though now it is as terrifying as it was in the 1960s all over again.

The best thing about now is there is no Draft (at least yet) for boys (and probably for girls too) if we have another war like Viet Nam or Korea which Ukraine could easily turn into because of Putin's Craziness.