Staying Alive from 18 to 25 (1966 until 1973)

 By the title you can figure out that I'm 78 years old now here in 2026. HOwever I once was 18 years old and Graduated High School at a private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. However, my first 2 years of high school I went to Glendale High School (The Dynamiters) from 1963 to 1965 school years in Southern California in Los Angeles County.

But, then I had a 21 year old Girlfriend from Church when I was 16 years old so it could be said I grew up too fast. But, people often were forced to grow up very fast in 1964 when I was 16 and worked and paid for my first car which was a 1956 Ford STation wagon that I called my "Surfwagon" in which we carried our Longboards as they would be called now and all over 10 feet long at that time in the 1960s.

I also saw how Skateboards started in Los Angeles County by removing clip on Skates for shoes into two pieces and nailing them to the bottom of a 2 by 4 stud 1 or 2 feet long (your preference). So, this was about 1960 when I saw my first 2 by 4 home made skate board. This was with old metal wheels which could be dangerous too. So, soon someone invented rubber or plastic wheels of some kind so the board didn't slip out from under. you. Then in 7th grade in public school we got (as boys) 1/4 of print shop, 1/4 of drafting, 1/4 of metal shop and 1/4 of Wood shop which made the whole year. So, some guy thought of making in wood shop his own surfboard skate board and this is how this idea started. So, many 7th graders did this in wood shop after that that people started to manufacture them for people first in California then all over the country.

So, this all started about 1960 when I was 12 in Junior High sChool in 7th Grade. Then I saw my first girl from UC Berkeley come home on a break wearing a pendleton shirt with hairy armpits. This was sort of unheard of then and the beginning of women's liberation. Another thing that happened in 1960 was that the birth control pill became legal so women didn't just have to get pregnant and be forced to get married to someone who might ruin their lives forever. The Term Shotgun Wedding was a real thing when I was growing up and if you didn't marry the girl you knocked up the father might literally shoot you (the father of the girl you knocked up). This was reality all over the country and had been this way for literally thousands of years all over the world. And if it wasn't a shotgun then it was a sword or a knife or a machete. This was very real in the 1950s and 1960s when I was growing up and it was like this everywhere on earth in the middle and lower classes always. It still might be this way in many countries to this day.

So, I graduated High school in 1966 at age 18 and went to the post office on my birthday in the spring and signed up for the draft as required by law. However, my father called and told me to say that I might need a medical deferment which I was eventually given of what was called a 4F at the time which meant that I only would be called if someone like Russia attacked the U.S. with nuclear weapons or chemical weapons or something like that because of a concussion with seizures from age 10 to age 15 years old.

So, I didn't have to worry about being drafted like all my other friends within 5 to 10 years of my age in the U.S. so I could go to college. I wasn't ready for college in my freshman, Sophomore or Junior Year but after my senior year in a private school where I didn't have to fight anyone to survive there I was able to move to a different way of thinking about life and this made me a college man. Public school often keeps people from being college material especially boys because of Gangs. When I was 15 to 18 it was mostly Car Clubs which were sort of like Gangs and I had one friend who had stolen a new Corvette at age 15 had to spend a month or two in an honor farm (juvenile detention center) for this. However, at 18 all these kinds of stuff were usually erased from your record.

So, he joined the Army and signed a contract for them to make him a helicopter pilot. However, the Army broke his contract and he sued them and so the agreement was he didn't have to serve in the Army during the Viet Nam war which likely saved his life because Helicopter pilots often died like flies there becase of bullets coming up from weapons up through the floor of the helicopters. 

I began to see how difficult my life was going to be about the time I went to college. I loved learning new things but realized it was going to be much tougher than I thought in life before. So, I was sort of crushed by all the choices I had to make. My father was forced by his father to become an Electrician and eventually a Electrical Contractor in California when I was about 12 years old and his older brother did the same in Seattle where my Mom and Dad were originally from.

So, all the choices seemed overwhelming to me to the point where I almost wished my Dad had forced me to be an electrician too. 

So, like many young people I had a lot of intelligence but really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life outside of Surfing, Body Surfing, Playing piano and keyboards, playing guitar and singing for friends and girlfriends, Skiing, Boogie boarding (another kind of surfing) and riding off road motorcycles through the deserts of the American Southwest and up dry washes then in the 1960s and early 1970s.

So, I go to college and I was raised in such a way that Darwin's theory wasn't happening for me at that time. I was very scientifically minded but my religious training started to conflict with my technical and scientific training so like many young people I was in a quandary. Then I broke up with one girlfriend because I couldn't grow up fast enough to marry her myself when I was 20 and she married a guy from Texas and they are still together today which is good. But, then I planned around another girl to marry and she told me finally that she was going to remain a virgin the rest of her life but she wanted to marry me anyway. So, I said: "Hey. That's not going to work for me because I want children so we broke up when I was 21 years old about the time the astronauts went to the moon for the first time.

Then I was sort of forlorn with 2 sets of plans dashed for my life regarding marriage and I was only 21 years old. 

It was then I started to realize that planning wasn't going to work for me so I realized I had to become an opportunist instead. So, I worked many places and went to college and dated many women who weren't virgins who wanted to remain that way the rest of their lives.

However, I was despondent about 3 different girls for 3 reasons who I dated in my church. Then I had to leave my church because I was too progressive and asked too many questions for being in a religion. They really don't want you to ask ANY really meaningful questions in ANY church.

It's sort of "Believe it or go away".

So, I went away off into my own world where at least I could have some integrity and not lie all the time like people tend to do in churches (and sometimes in families too).

so, Trying to stay alive and to want to be alive through all of this was pretty upsetting to me. then I finally found a Psychology today magazine in a college library and I started to realize that I would have to dump about 90% of my traditions in order to stay alive and to live past 25 years old.

So, I reparented myself and dumped the 90% I needed to dump to live a long lifetime and I moved on in my life and started studying to become a psychologist so I could help people who didn't know if they wanted to be alive or not like I was experiencing from about 18 to 25 but really seriously from 21 to 25.

Then my live in girlfriend in college got pregnant when I was 25 and I dropped out of college to financially support her and my son. and now today my son is 52 years old and is having health problems and has a 12 year old son. So, my 1st wife and I and her boyfriend and I and my wife are all trying to keep my son alive for himself and the rest of his family and friends.

Getting married and having a son allowed me to forget that I didn't want to be here on earth really and I found that being a Dad and husband suited me just like when i studied my forebears on my fathers side back to 1580 in Switzerland where they had 5 to 10 kids and owned businesses mostly.

So, my Uncle owned his own business and so did my father and so does my cousin and so do my wife and I and this all began to make some sense to me when my son was born and I got married.

By God's Grace