Right now, I can't go on about Mr. Camacho's class. That's a whole story in itself. The important part is what I did next. A few months later, out of the blue, I decided to join the Navy. I hadn't really thought about it before. It was just an impulse. I had no idea what I was getting into. This is 1976. Nobody has short hair. Nobody.

The group of guys I'd came with got to hang around in our hair for an extra day because we'd arrived on Saturday evening, and the barbers didn't come back to work again until Monday. We got to know each other in all of our fuzz.

On Monday, when we came out of the barbers' chairs bald, we'd all lost our identities. We could not recognize any of the people we had just talked to a few minutes earlier. We staggered around for a moment, dazed by all skin.

Bootcamp was a real test. I made it, barely. My Basic Tech Schools were other testers that I got through on a 'survivors' grade. Then, we got to the math. I was terrified of flunking. I had been terrible at Algebra. I knew I was going to struggle.

Then, on the first day of that class, I had my arithmetical epiphany. As I sat there listening to the instructor describe the movement of electrons in a circuit, the lights just came on. I actually got it. Then I got Calculus, Boolean Algebra, Acoustics, everything.

That 19 week class was my next building block. Now I understood the Math and Philosophy. Well, I had a freshman's understanding...