I am a...VERB

MY DIGS I found a nice upstairs studio apartment on the edge of La Jolla, adjacent to Pacific Beach.  It was in a 2-story U-arranged building that formed an inner courtyard, and each apartment faced the one across the way.   The apartments opened to a balcony corridor.  The location was pleasant: a quiet residential area close to a row of beachfront homes on Calumet Avenue with a grassy bluff park where I would take evening walks. This was a huge change from my unique one-room schoolhouse abode, 'in the middle of nowhere,' high up in Ojai's beautiful Upper Valley.  I missed the space, the beauty, and the silence.  But there were compensations... JEANNE Shortly after I moved in, I would see a young woman about my age coming in and out of her apartment.  She had rich red hair and a bright smile, often dressed in a medical lab coat.  She was finishing her medical tech degree in residency at Scripps Hospital, another one of the Scripps medical f

A ONE-IN-A-MILLION CHANCE My draft issues that had been brewing for several years were now coming to a head.  My appeals to be recognized as a conscientious objector (CO) to war had been unanimously denied at the local and state levels and had now gotten as far as the Selective Service Presidential Appeal Board in Washington, D.C.  I had little hope that the prior unanimous decisions would be reversed. In the spring of 1970...my second semester at Happy Valley...I received the remarkable news that the Presidential Appeal Board had reversed the prior unanimous decisions and that my claim as a conscientious objector was approved.  My lawyer told me that this was a one-in-a-million chance and he was as surprised as I was. THANKFUL FOR A GRACEFUL WAY OUT Just weeks after I had received official notice of my status, I was drafted to serve my two years.  My time at Happy Valley came to an abrupt end.  In certain respects, this came as a relief. While there was much I liked at