Thanks to the navy

At some time while in the Las Vegas, Nevada high school, 1941, 1942 and 1943 a story about a father who started to write his children but then was killed by a natural disaster stuck in my mind. I dropped out of high school in the summer of 1944 and enlisted in the navy. I obtained a high school diploma by completing some courses via correspondence while in the navy. My father insisted I should go to a Catholic college. He told me he thought I was losing my religion. An officer aboard ship in January 1946 had a book of colleges. I wrote to St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Having grown up in southern Nevada but ending up in Charleston, South Carolina thanks to the navy I decided on a college in the East. The blurb about St. Vincent was of a friendly place in the beautiful rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania. It had been established as a Benedictine monastery and featured a brewery. The only thing I knew about the word Benedictine was it was something Catholic. I was familiar with the word brewery and enjoyed the product. In spite of only three years of high school and the equivalent of a GED diploma I was accepted. I later came to believe the reason I was accepted was that in September 1946 I was one of two students from West of the Mississippi River.