Back to school…I certainly had some misgivings since it had been 4 years that I was in high school, but I did do well in the 3 classes (Program Afloat College Education) I took aboard ship over a couple of med cruises. Taking a class – one at a time – was a big difference from taking 4 at a time while I was paying (in a way) for it.
Pursuing a degree was a bi-rationale thing. One night on feed pump watch in the engine room I wondered what kind of strange mind could imagine all of that hardware and how it worked together. I followed up by asking the various folk in khakis (senior enlisted & officers) and found out that a mechanical engineer was responsible. Being entitled to the GI Bill meant decent money coming in provided I went full time (12 semester hours ~ 4 classes a term). The job hunt wasn’t going too well, but the GI money would certainly help. Luckily the combination of PACE classes, CLEP’ing some classes, and my age meant I could bypass a lot of the really boring classes & PE.
For the most part I was serious about my studies, as opposed to how I was in high school. Yet I found time to sniff after my female classmates – nothing seriously happened – but being married meant that I had no business being so flirtatious. There was always time for drinking & smoking, and going to class in that condition; especially US History class. Nothing finer than being read to straight out of the text book to drive you to getting toasted.
There was a weird instance in which I was attracted to a female student that I later learned was also married, but she was pretty insistent that I hook up with her husband – we used to get hammered a lot. Later on I discovered that she was using me to entertain her husband while she had an affair with someone else. You’d think that there was a lesson there, but obviously I didn’t learn it.
During my time at community college I enlisted in the navy reserve. Of course I waited too long to go in, so I lost a stripe; went from E5 to E4. Playing weekend warrior brought in some extra cash and a 2 week vacation in South Carolina working on a ship.
I managed to get my Associate in Arts degree with honors and was planning with El for the next step; i.e., which 4 year college to transfer to. The first choice was University of South Florida in Tampa, but after El & I took a trip down south – we decided that the gulf coast wasn’t it for us. By graduating with honors, I was accepted to University of Florida in Gainesville; however they would not accept me into their engineering program until I had taken physics & calculus. That equated to two more semesters at TCC so El & I asked if we could move in with her mother (she had divorced by that time – I think) on the premise that we could save some money for the move to Gainesville.
Also somewhere in that time frame I got a job as a small engine mechanic which lasted maybe a year before he cut me loose due to business falling off. Got lucky and landed a job at a Dodge dealer as a ‘new car prep’ mechanic which entailed prepping cars for delivery, installing cruise control, stereos, etc.
Moving in with El’s ma was a mistake. She immediately became reabsorbed into her family role with her brothers & mom. Join that with me working at car dealership with a cute & flirty 19 year old blonde and it wasn’t long before I decided the grass was greener and El & I separated. I lived with a male coworker and as soon as I had separated from El, little giggly blonde wanted nothing to do with me. Free marriage counseling through the college brought me back to El after about a month and I thought I was cured. But you have to know what’s wrong before you can fix it, and I had no idea.
I don’t recall much self pleasure in those days, primarily because it has been so long ago and there probably wasn’t anything that stood out. However, I can guess that it continued due to constant exposure to younger classmates and an occasional alluring professor.
I finished up the required classes then it was time to leave Tally town behind.
On to Gator Country or to intermediate Reflections – TCC.
Or back to the previous blog Out on Arrival.
babychristian55 