After graduating from Brazosport High School, I left for Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas. I moved in with the Ferguson family. Marion and Emma Ferguson opened their home to me, and I attended Lamar along with Jim and his sister Betty Lynn. I had every opportunity to succeed. And I failed.
The Problem Followed Me
The problem that had nearly defeated me when I transferred from Brady to Brazosport High School had never really been solved. I still didn't know how to study.
I had managed to graduate from high school by going to summer school every summer and making up the credits I had lost. I had learned how to work hard. I could go to school, bellhop at a hotel, lifeguard, and play music at night. Work didn't frighten me. But college required a different kind of discipline. Nobody was going to make me study. Nobody was going to organize my time for me. Nobody was going to rescue my grades at the end of the semester.
I had to do that myself. And I didn't. After one year at Lamar, I flunked out. There isn't much point in dressing it up with nicer language. I failed.
Back to Freeport
I returned to Freeport. College had been my opportunity to move forward, and I had lost it. I went to work repairing roads around the harbor. There is nothing wrong with hard physical work. I had grown up around people who worked hard all their lives. But I knew this was not what I had intended for myself. I made another attempt at college, this time at Wharton Junior College. It didn't solve the problem. My grades once again showed that I was not ready.
By then, however, something much larger than my academic problems was happening. The United States was at war in Vietnam. As long as I was successfully attending college, that had provided some protection from the military draft. Now I was no longer successfully in college. And eventually the letter came. I had been drafted into the Army. Suddenly, failing college was no longer simply about grades. My life was about to take another turn.