Boy In Search Of A Plan

        I was eighteen and I had to get out...I had a thirst for adventure. I had digested every Herman Melville book (mostly about traveling the South Pacific)  in the Portage Northern library. An imperfect relationship with my stepfather in a small suburban home, in which eight of us shared one small bathroom...helped pushed me out the door.
         I'd applied to Universities in Hawaii, Alaska and Annapolis, Maryland. My good citizenship in academia, not my grade point average, resulted in acceptance to all three directions from Michigan. I was a hard worker throughout my teens and an avid baseball fan. The Detroit Tigers had World Series rings for the first time in my lifetime so, all I had to do was sell my 1965 Ford Mustang and buy an airline ticket out of there....chapter complete.
         I decided against an 'all expenses paid' six year commitment to the US Naval Academy or a period of study on Alaska's frozen tundra, in favor of, a Melville-inspired move to the remotest archipelago of year-around warmth on the planet. Yes, I was running away to "find myself". During the summer of 1969 I found myself wrapping silverware and cleaning ovens between two of Honolulu International Airport's two busiest runways...working in the United Airlines flight kitchen. Hawaii was complicated, I crashed my newly acquired Honda motorcycle three times and met the perfect 19 year old girl, on vacation from the San Francisco Bay area.
        An airline ticket to SFO cost me $12.42 (taxes only) a few months later...I was following a tip from my U of H advisor that San Jose State College had the best journalism program in the western US and he could get me accepted there. I was also chasing "the perfect girl. I got an internship at the San Jose Mercury News and a month later they put my picture and an important fragment of my story on the front page of the 'morning edition'     ....to be continued.