Aced it

 

Aced it





     This one comes from an incident in the late 1960's involving my brother and Billy Hogan. Stephen was living in Married Housing on Sepulveda in WLA trying to finish school and support his family. Although he was a brilliant student with a very high GPA he kind of ran out of gas on the final lap. Partying hard was part of the college experience. He had two non-major classes to complete and was willing to do anything to pass these annoying responsibilities. Problem was, he  did not attend them but focused on smoking pot and drinking Oly beers. I remember the name of the teacher was Tom Foggins and the class was Geography. Now, as a fine big brother Stephen opened his doors to me and my pals while supplying us with beer at his parties. At this same time I was attending Compton College, prepping to join my bro. in one last quarter at UCLA. At Compton I had to great pleasure to go to classes with Billy and Paul Knowlton. Both of these young scholars went on to earn degrees at LB State and UCLA. Bill and I took a lot of the same classes (Geology, American History, English Literature and Geography. We also studied together for tests in the classes and Bill was pretty solid at Geography as presented to us at CJC. One drunken night at Stephen's place a plot was hatched where Bill would stand in for Stephen taking the final for Geography, a class my brother "forgot" to attend. It was hoped Bill could scrape by and relieve my mentor of this thorn in his side. Stephen had already earned a scholarship to attend USC to get his Masters so the completion of Geography was essential. The big day arrived and Stephen took Bill over to the campus and led him to the classroom with many students nervously awaiting the final. A couple of hours later Bill emerged and was greeted by Stephen whereupon Bill flashed him the OK sign and said "Aced It!" A greatly relieved big bro. bought us some brewskies and a celebration followed. In those days you handed in a post card with your test and the results were mailed to you so Stephen was happy to see such a postal in his mail the next week. There in the center was the single letter signifying results with a big red "F"  There is much more to the story but suffice to say Stephen somehow went on to get his Masters and the rest is history. 



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