Two years earlier, another friend of mine, Mario Miller, had moved from Othello to Pasco, Washington, and then his dad, Oliver, had moved the family to Port Angeles, Washington. Mario and I had hit it off pretty well together and we missed hanging out so when he encouraged me to come to Peninsula College in Port Angeles, it seemed like a good idea.

I had about $1,000.00 from working for my Dad in the mint harvest, plus I had sold him my 1952 Ford Pickup for $100.00. I had also sold my 1965 Plymouth Barracuda and used part of the money from it to buy a 1962 Chevy II. ( Selling the Barracuda and buying the Chevy II was a big dummy on my part!)

Anyhow, I had some money, and tucked away in a savings account since I was a little kid, was about $1250.00 which my folks had saved for my college fund. The savings account money was under the control of my parent's divorce court so Dad got the court to release it to me for school at a rate of $125.00 per month.

Dad and I traveled over to PA in the mid-summer and we checked out the school, it looked good, not much different than the High School in Othello. Mario was delighted to see me and began planning all of the cool things we would be able to do together.

Dad and I found a lady, Dorris Tuttle, who owned a big three-story house on 1st Street in Port Angeles, and I was able to contract with her for an off-campus room with an upstairs kitchenette, attic loft TV room, and a shared upstairs bathroom with a tub for $40.00 per month.

School time arrived and I said good-bye to Dad and my brother, Nate, and of course, my girl friend, Celeste, who could not believe that I had actually sold my Barracuda for the horrible Chevy II car. I loaded up my Chevy, with most of my possessions and moved to PA. I was really excited about moving out and being on my own.

Things went well with the move. I returned the next weekend and picked up my BSA Gold Star motorcycle, borrowing the 1952 Ford Pickup to haul it to Port Angeles. Life was looking pretty good. Some other fellows showed up to attend school and stay in the boarding house. We shared the rooms with two guys in a room. My room mate was a kid from Port Townsend, Raleigh Haynes.

I thought that enrollment in the school would actually go well too. I wasn't expecting any problems. But then it happened. I had somehow decided that I might like to pursue a pre-dental course of study. Dentists looked into peoples mouths, but they didn't have to do all of the nasty doctor things that regular doctors have to do so I thought why not be a dentist. The only problem was that pre-dental students had to take Chemistry. Chemistry at Peninsula College was taught by William "Bill" Churchley. Bill Churchley was also assigned to be my course counselor.

As I had read the college manuals, I noticed that one of the graduation requirements was five or six quarters of PE (Physical Education). I was not terribly fond of the idea of PE. But if one had to do it one had to do it. But the manual did not specifically say when one had to do it. It only said that it had to be completed to graduate.

That seemed ok to me. I would take the regular "hard" classes and save the PE classes until my junior and senior year and then take them all together in a bunch and make some pretty easy quarters out of my last college years.

This was a great plan in my mind and I could see nothing wrong with it. One simply had to think outside of the box and then get the normal school schedule adjusted to fit the plan. Trying to do it was a mistake. Mr. Churchley had a very short crew-cut haircut in 1969. I had a hair about one inch long. I was not a hippie. But I was fomenting the idea of a revolution by suggesting that I could deviate from the schools's regular educational schedule.

He became very unhappy with me. I tried to be polite. As I think back, maybe I was a mouthy-back talking kid in his eyes. I do not know. I only know that it wasn't long before I ended up before the head of the college. It was not what I had expected.

I entered his office and he indicated I should set down. I did. He was very polite. He asked me several questions. He asked me about my Dad and my brother and the farm. He asked me what I wanted to do with my life and with school. I told him my plan and my side of everything and he sat for a few minutes behind his desk thinking it over. Then he picked up his pen and said, "Ok. It doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me, I'll approve the change." After signing some papers for me to take out and give to the office lady, he came around the desk and shook my hand and wished me the best of luck at the school.

Well, as a seventeen-year old kid, I was ecstatic. I had won. But Mr. Churchley was less than happy about it. He was my home room professor, I had Chemistry first thing every morning and he let me know that he wasn't going to tolerate any funny business in his class. I was able to figure out that he had marked me as a trouble maker.

Well, Chemistry in college was not the same as Chemistry in High School and I was miserable at it. I struggled through two quarters of it until I finally went into my spring quarter session with Mr. Churchley and told him I was quitting the pre-dental thing. I told him I had decided to general classes. He seemed to be pretty pleased that I was giving it up leaving his instruction. Anyhow, I switched directions and took nineteen credit hours and the heaviest load I had ever taken at the school and got the best grades of the year. I was done with Chemistry and Mr. Churchley.

Before I leave you with the idea that I blame Mr. Churchley for the failure in Chemistry, let me say a couple of things. It wasn't his fault at all. It was mine. Two major things contributed to my failure and downfall as a Chemistry student.

Number one, I was very poorly prepared in the area of math. I had lost interest in mathematics back in the eight grade and had spent most of my high school math classes drawing pictures of motorcycles and wishing that I was out riding them.

Number two, I was more drawn to riding my BSA Gold Star in the afternoon or going fishing down on the log boom in the harbor than I was drawn to learning the basic fundamentals of Chemistry. Churchley did not particularly care for my educational plan, but he still taught a good Chemistry class. The other students who wanted to learn and who did their homework did fine in it. So if I didn't learn Chemistry and did not become a dentist it was my own fault. Not someone elses.