1973, fifty years ago, turned into being one of the most pivotal periods in my life. I had just spent the last few years going from a D student in high school who barely graduated to catching up at our local Jr. college and getting into UCSC by the skin of my teeth. The plan was to become a lawyer and live a lovely upper middle-class lifestyle while doing and saying smart stuff. My American Indian princess wife and I had been married the year before and Pocohontas figured she had fulfilled her role as a fantasy figure for a white hippie guy channeling Jeremiah Johnson and now it was her turn. She yearned to be the wife of a successful white, fork tongued devil and move to an upscale hood off the reservation. We were both about ready to become sorely disappointed. 

I knew I had made a huge mistake my very first week of classes. I am not a natural academic by nature and feel I had somewhat burned myself out in the preceding two years. The bullshitting of both the professors and students started to irritate me instantly. I was a political science major and let it be clear that it is not a science. I really wanted to major in some hard science since I was a little kid, but hard science was not interested in majoring in me. Politics is a very subjective field of study and prone to bullshitting. That is actually one of the required skill sets of any successful politician or political science professor. Each class lecture was like being forced to listen to a Helen Cox Richardson piece being boringly read aloud. Professors tended to use way too many words to make way too few points. Academics were paid by the word really. I recall looking around the class and thinking if this is the cream of the crop and the future leaders of our country, we are up shit creek. Funny how that actually kind of played out in the coming years. In my whole time at UCSC I was in a perpetual state of 'Yeah, but did you consider....' 

I decided that I was way too young for college right then. I needed some real-world life experience. So did my professors. I dropped out and in that next year became a roofer, office machine salesman, dope grower/dealer, furniture salesman, car salesman, and paint store clerk. I would return to UCSC 3 more times on their 20-year program. There may have been better students, but I am betting none that attended off and on for over 20 years. Even UCSC students are smarter than that. In retrospect I made the right move. Life is a twisted path, and the more twisted the better.