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Some of my best memories of FC include activities both inside and outside the classroom. One class I remember best is a political science class (my major) in which we were given a term-paper assignment to find the biases in major periodicals and newspapers. For me it was an epiphany to learn that all “news” is biased. I recently revisited that idea when speaking with some of our right-leaning friends. They were bringing up all kinds of “facts” as gleaned from sources like Fox News and right-leaning radio shows. The next time we met and they started spewing more “facts”, I just stopped them and told them that I had just coined a new word “spinformation”. Aside from their extreme political leanings, these are pretty nice people so they ceased their spinformational tirade and we moved on to other subjects. The lessons I learned about political bias have stuck with me over the years.
Outside the classroom I learned to value and love music. It was around 1967 that I attended Fullerton College. At that time during breaks many students would bring out their guitars and sit around trading folk songs. For me it was like “Washington Square West” because hanging out in these musical circles I learned not only many new songs, but different guitar styles. Jackson Browne would often attend these informal gatherings and his best buddy Steve Noonan would dazzle us all with his Doc Watson style of play. I ended up taking lessons from Steve. I only learned a few songs, (the lessons were very informal). But the time spent with the pickers and singers at Fullerton will always be a special memory for me. In fact, that’s one reason I encouraged my daughter to go there. There’s not much of a folk scene now, but she has found FC an excellent place to build her own memories.