However, what I want to write about actually took place in 1965 and 1966 for me in my Senior Year in High School.
I had a completely different experience than this movie of course. I was going steady with a girl from my church who had graduated from this same church School in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1965. So, after we spent the summer together while going together in 1965 in the fall I had wanted to drop out of school (High school) after my Junior Year. My parents (wiser than Me) talked to me about this church private school in Santa Fe, that my girlfriend from church had just graduated from too. They finally convinced me to go late that fall in October of 1965. But, I wasn't allowed to have my own car (my surf wagon) which was a 1956 Ford STation Wagon blue and white two tone of that era of the 1950s then.
So, i got on what was called "El Capitan" which was a touring Train that ran from Los Angeles and went to Santa Fe, on the way to points east (likely Chicago eventually?) On the train I met a young man age 18 or 19 coming back from the war in Viet Nam. He was a marine Sargeant but seemed like all the wonderfulness of his life was gone from seeing so much death and dying there. It was one of the many reasons I saw that going to the Viet Nam War as a soldier might be the end of me whether I physically survived the war or not. And while I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico my father told me to go to the Post office so I could apply for the draft. But, he said I needed to check some box that said something like: "Need a medical Deferment". So, I dutifullly checked this box off like my father asked me to and sent the draft card from the post office off in the mail in the spring time from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I eventually got a 4F through this process which meant I would never be drafted unless our country was attacked in an all out war with some other nation.
While I was at the private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico it snowed in the first week I was there and about 10 or more students from the school (since the school closed because of so much snow you couldn't drive a car because no roads were plowed we built snow forts and threw snowballs big and small at each other. I had never had an experience like this being raised mostly in the Los Angeles and San Diego Areas.. Later we took a trip up higher into the mountains with Truck inner tubes and slid down hills at around 20 to 30 miles an hour which was great fun! However, one time a toddler ran in front of me while I was coming down a hill and you couldn't stop at these speeds so I lifted the child and threw them into the air so they wouldn't get injured. The child went up but landed on his feet so he was okay. Whew!
The private school experience was mostly good for me at the time because I was the biggest and strongest kid in the school at age 17 and so I was respected and treated well by everyone there.
This led to my going to college which likely wouldn't have happened if I dropped out of school then after my Junior Year in High school even though kids doing this then was really common.
The only problem with going to that High School was that it separated my girlfriend back in LA and I in that I met another girl who was only 16 at the school and then I felt embarrassed to sort of be dating two girls at the same time. I didn't know how to deal with all this at the time.
On the one hand my girlfriend in Los Angeles I likely would have eventually married who also went to my church but the problem was she was a year older than I was and likely ready to marry by age 20 or 21 which she eventually did to a guy 25 who was a college graduate and they are still together after getting married in 1969 and they live in Texas.
It's strange to look back at my year in private school from here simply because it was so pivotal in my life regarding my going to college and yet I wasn't able to marry the girl I always expected to because it so changed my life going away to school in so many different ways.
Truth is always much stranger than Fiction!
Ever since 1965 to 1970 I sort of see as this saying above. So, the rest of my life I also see as "Truth is much stranger than fiction" in all ways both in a good way and in a bad way.
It's interesting watching this movie "The Holdovers(2023" and how it reminded me of my own senior year in High school so long ago now and how I didn't die in Viet Nam like many people I knew then and I didn't marry my girlfriend then in Los Angeles and all the other things that have happened since in my life.
I never could have ever believed the life I was going to live both in a good way and in a bad way. Life is Bittersweet (but it's still sweet even now)
By God's Grace
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