OK, Time to move on to better places in my musical diary.

By the time I was in high school I knew the music bug had terminally infected the very depths of my soul. OK, man, What are you gonna do about it. Well, I did alot of goofy things like play my sax along with records (that was more fun than "practicing"), but that got me nowhere. I pondered a performance degree from a place like Julliard or Berkley, but that also wasn't to be either, so the only thing left for any kind of musical career was to teach it. Problem was I was FAR away academically from that, having failed to take any college prep classes in my senior year in HS. So, I had to do one year as an adjunct student at the local Berks (County) Campus of the Pennsylvania State University (Home of the Nittney Lions Football team featuring Joe Paterno). But the place I really wanted to be was West Chester State College which had a superior music ed department.

The good folks at West Chester told me that if I did well academically and musically (translation: study real hard on college level math and english type courses like Speech, English Composition and at least one foreign language plus practiced the clarinet real hard and pass the audition) I could enter West Chester the following year as a sophomore. Great news! My life was all set!! All I had to do was bust my butt for one lousy year taking college level algebra (I couldn't even handle high school level algebra) and the English and Foreign language ( I chose Spanish and aced it because I was good at nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, conjugations and declentions etc.) And of course, the horn was easy.

For those who never took on college, it's not for the faint hearted or lazy! You have to STUDY STUDY STUDY. Four hours of home study for every hour in the classroom. In addition to the above mentioned drudgery, I also took some fun courses like Psychology 1 (Intropsych) and Social Sciences. I started the year thinking "I'll never survive this" and ended the year aceing everything!! Even the God-Awfull Algebra! I don't know how I pulled this miracle off, but I did!! I also aced the music audition and was pleased when West Chester accepted me to enter their midst as a sophomore in the fall of 1975. I was so proud of that letter I wanted to frame it!

Then I made the biggest mistake of my life!!! I DROPPED OUT!!!

My dad totally freaked!! He told me that he wished he could make me go, but didn't see any point in it as I was old enough to make my own decisions and mistakes. He told me "You're gonna regret it. I promise you!" He was right.

Oh, Why did I quit? You had to ask, didn't you? Well to be perfectly honest, it was because I got all hung up on my GIRLFRIEND!!! (Not the woman who turned out to be my wife).

It wasn't her fault. I accept full responsibility for that idiotic decision. SHE even tried to convince me to go. I was so hung up on her that it would've destracted me from my studies.

So, I entered the workforce. Mom and Dad sold the spinet piano that I fervently practiced on (did I mention that THAT was a requirement to get into WC too?)

Oh, incidentaly, My relationship with my girlfriend came to a tragic ending two years later. What a waste. What a dummy (I was).