Reply To: How did you heard about Belknap?

#10871
Mike Sehl
Participant

Well, my story took place in the summer of 1964 in the big City of Vineland, New Jersey. My Mom had passed away suddenly when I was fourteen, so my Dad, my Brother Jim (7 years older) and I were three bachelors living in the yellow split level that Mom and Dad bought a few years before her death. I saw her that afternoon in the summer of my fourteenth year and got a big hug from her when I went out to be with friends. She was gone the next day.
I had gone to Catholic School until my sophomore year in High School. I credit the Nuns demanding program through elementary school with my English language skills. Those skills got me through many classes years later.
One Sunday morning in the second half of the summer, one of our routines was getting the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer and warm sticky buns from a local bakery to eat at home. I was one the floor reading the comics and eating a sticky bun. Dad was sitting in his chair reading the rest of the paper. He found an advertisement in the back of the Inquirer Sunday Magazine that said “Belknap College still had openings in the Fall Classes”. He showed me the ad, where I learned that Belknap was in New Hampshire. The background to this conversation is that I graduated at the bottom of my class because I had refused to do a “busy work” project for the Senior History class teacher, and he was good to his word. His word was that if I didn’t turn in the paper, I would not pass. If I did not pass history, I would not graduate with my class. He was right. I had also dropped the ball in an English class. So, I had to make those up in summer school which was not very hard.
Dad and I drove to Center Harbor from Vineland, stopped at the Diary Bar to refresh from our 8 hour drive. I may have met Sally Whalen that very day. The Admissions office was a that time in the Stone Building. Our interview was not stressful, but cordial and informative. I had not taken S.A.T.s, but Dad had the ability to put a down payment on my tuition, and I was accepted for September. I love Belknap, the students, and Center Harbor to this day. Had I been mature enough, I might even have recognized the benefits to be deceived from studying, but then I would have stayed in New Hampshire for four years and most likely would not have met Suzanne in Ocean City in 1968.
If I get the courage to actually finish and publish my first person first novel about my early days including Belknap, you will be able to read …. The rest of the story.