But, over the next several semesters, Coast taught me how to be a student.
My options, as I stood, brow furrowed, in the high school parking lot following my graduation ceremony, were, essentially . . . zero. I stood as much chance of becoming a legitimate college student as I did of throwing a rock from my location at the corner of Fairview Street and Arlington Drive and hitting the Balboa Island Ferry.
I didn’t qualify for UCLA. I wasn’t close to being on the Westwood school’s radar screen. Had I qualified for USC — which I didn’t — my hardworking blue-collar father couldn’t have earned enough money in a decade to send me there for a semester.
UC Irvine didn’t exist, and Orange State College (now Cal State Fullerton) was a tiny school in trailers in an orange grove.
Thank God for OCC!
I perceived it as a slightly esoteric “JC” (I really didn’t know what a junior college was) with an exotic title. The name — Orange Coast College — elicited images of fragrant citrus groves cascading from sunny heights to pristine beaches splashed by translucent blue-green waves. The name screamed Southern California lifestyle!
I’d been on campus for athletic events, plays and concerts during my high school years. It seemed comfortable and friendly, and featured a few “new” buildings as well as a smattering of World War II barracks.
The summer following my junior year in high school, I worked with a guy named Angelo at a clothing shop in downtown Costa Mesa. Angelo, a worldly chap who happened to be an OCC student, was outgoing and witty. I thought him extremely cool. At 19, he was three years my senior.
“It’s a happenin’ place,” Angelo confided when I asked him for the lowdown on the college. “You can pretty much go to class when you want. There’s no tuition — just books. And the chicks, man, they’re twitchin’.”
