High school means many things, and one thing it means is the SAT.

(Or the ACT. Or both. And there was the PSAT. I wonder, did anyone take the PSAT as preparation for the ACT? Did it help?)

In the mid-1960s I took them all. And then I took the whole testing game a step furthur than most. I took the Navy ROTC test. That was not it's exact name. But that is what it was.

The prize for passing the Navy test was a full tuition and living expenses for four years in college. In return one then served four years of active duty as a well-paid naval officer. The alternative to being a naval officer was likely to be two years as an army private, at a time when army privates were generally not at all happy with their lot in life. Or their pay.

Shortly after I reported aboard USS Odax, we went into the yard and had big holes cut into our pressure hull to install a new battery. This was a big deal, of course. After a couple of months of industrial activity aboard, we then were required to prove that we could remember how to run the boat, both on the surface and while submerged. This process goes by the name of RefTra, or Refresher Training.

My uncle was a very responsible and respected church elder in Port Arthur, Texas. He was active in civic affairs, and was president of the Texas chapter of his professional society.

Port Arthur and Beaumont, both in Jefferson County, Texas, next to the Louisiana border, were hotbeds of crime and corruption. They are both refinery towns, and there were always lots of roughnecks and tanker sailors around, and the oil money was flowing like, well, oil. When my younger cousin finished high school, my uncle felt that it was time to take a risk, stand up for something, and fight the forces of evil around Lake Sabine.

A tax firm sent me, Clifton Charlton, copies of my last five income tax returns. An employment firm sent me, Alan Charlton, a list of curtain walling vacancies ranging from London to Lancashire. I shop at The Compleat Angler in Bentleigh, Victoria, even though I appear to own my own bait and tackle shops in Launceston, Tasmania and in Redbank, Queensland. Diane Charlton sends email to herself. At least, she tries to, apparently. Charlton Collum has been offered a free lunch with his ski rental, but we all know that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

My first experience with the streetcars in the San Francisco Municipal Railway was in 1981. I boarded the Light Rail Vehicle (LRV) near UCSF after work one day. I was heading downtown for a night class. I was tired and hungry. I sat in a seat facing to the left. A new passenger boarded, and sat in the seat immediately beside me, where she could look into my left ear and see out my right ear. She was carrying a pizza box. Once the vehicle started moving, she opened the pizza box, pulled out a slice of hot pepperoni pie, and began feasting on it, in violation of the very strict rules.

She didn't offer me any.

Soon afterward another new passenger boarded and sat right in front of me, in a forward-facing seat where I could see in his right ear and out of his left ear. He was fidgety. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a handful of paper napkins with a logo from a fast food outlet, to blow his nose. He put everythiing back into the backpack. He fidgeted. He performed the backpack-napkin-nose ritual again. And again.

Then he went into the backpack one more time, but this time he pulled out an envelope. He pulled a single-edged old-fashioned razor blade out of the envelope. He used the blade to scoop some white powder out of the envelope. He held it up to his nose, and snorted the white powder off the sharp edge of the razor blade, on a crowded moving streetcar. He put everything away.

He didn't offer me any.

He then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his backpack. He shook out one cigarette and put it in his mouth. But he kept searching around in his backpack, and he got even shakier and more frantic. Finally he spoke for the first time, and asked the group at large, in violation of the very strict rules, 'Anybody got a match?'

That's when he discovered that he was invisible.

It was awesome.

Auburn in the 1960s

Freshmen could not play on the varsity teams. (example: Pat Sullivan)

College football teams could be shown on TV only once a year. (Plus a bowl game if lucky.)

The term “Iron Bowl” had not been adopted. We used other four-letter words.

Aubie was just a reporter's pen-and-ink drawing, not an official mascot.

Auburn’s home games against Tennessee, Georgia Tech, and Bama were played at Legion Field.

Men wore sport coats and ties to games and bought corsages for their dates.

This logo had not been adopted. A band member painted his bass drum like this, and it caught on.

Any male student who brought a woman to The Barn for a basketball game got picked up by the crowd and passed above the other spectators by hand, all the way around the court. His date was untouched during his trip.

Women were required to wear skirts or dresses at all times except when on the way to gym class, when they had to wear raincoats over their gym clothes.

Undergraduate women had to live in campus dorms and had curfew every night. Men lived without rules.

Draft deferments were more important than parking spaces.

War Eagle!

A Normal Mind