I Just Hate Self-Indulgent, Confessional Blogs

But then again, I felt such great pride when I read in the September issue of Radar Magazine that the school ranked No. 1 (for the second year in a row) on their list of the 50 Worst Colleges in America is . . . the University of Bridgeport! Here are the first two sentences from the Radar Magazine profile:

"We scoured the country for a more deserving dishonoree, we really did. But once again the University of Bridgeport has swept the competition in every category, not only for its meager academics, postapocalyptic campus, and downright shady administration, but because we simply can't imagine a more terrifying place to spend four years."

I speak of great pride because I entered UB in the fall of 1966 as a freshman. Truth be told, I left New Hampshire for Bridgeport, CT, to be close to my girlfriend, who lived just over the border in NY. Not that she was my girlfriend at the time, mind you; she had dumped me the previous winter. But the greatest fools have the highest hopes.

I lasted four semesters at UB before flunking out in the spring of 1968. (My girlfriend failed to see the error of her ways in that time, despite my lapdog efforts.) University officials allowed me to take two summer classes in the hopes I would get back over the flunkee hump. One course was a do-nothing English poetry class; I got a B. The other was a Japanese history course taught by a visiting Japanese professor who spoke little English. I did nothing in the class, except tell him at the end that I needed an A to stay in school. He gave me the A.

Back in the UB fold for the fall of 1968, I promptly flunked out again at the end of that semester. University officials thought better of any future matriculation on my part.

My 2-S student deferment status immediately in jeopardy (this was the Vietnam era), I enrolled back home in NH at the New Hampshire College of Accounting and Commerce. But seeing how I never went to a class and never paid my first tuition bill, my 2-S deferment immediately became 1-A (draft eligible -- Vietnam bound). Called by the military for my physical, I cut my hair so as not to stand out, tried my damnedest not to pass, but passed anyway and vacantly awaited the call to duty.

Fortune intervened, however, and the first military draft lottery picked me a very high number, and so I was pretty much assured of not being drafted.

Life, however, thought better of this good fortune when I totaled (having failed to purchase auto insurance -- then not required in NH) my one-month-old, two-tone purple 1960 Austin Healy 3000, bought for $800 -- the car of my dreams, still today.

Fortune intervened problematically yet a third time that summer when my new, old girlfriend (that girlfriend, after a three-year hiatus, was back) called to tell me she was pregnant and wondered what we were going to do about it.

We got married -- that's what we did about it. She was 19 and a high school drop-out; I was 20 and a college flunk-out.

And that's when everything began changing, and continued changing.

Everything except one thing:

39 years later -- same girlfriend.