After teaching for two years at Valley High School, I took a semester off to try a different field. I decided that teaching was really my calling, and I returned to it. I taught at Santa Ana High School for one semester, and then had the opportunity to move to Santa Ana Community College. I spent the next 28 years there. During my time there I taught many different courses. I taught biology, marine biology, physical oceanography, SCUBA diving, martial arts, archery, and survival courses, along with helping develop science teaching for the grammar school program. I also taught part-time at UCLA, UCI, Cal State Fullerton, and Orange Coast College at night and on weekends.
The community college is, I think, the premier place to teach. Most of the students there are there to truly get an education, not because their parents said they had to go to school. They live at home, so they study, instead of partying – which is really easy to get caught up in when you are, ‘away at school’. Many need a little extra help, or encouragement, to make it through. In the junior college it is easier to come by those things, than it is in the university. In my 28 years of teaching at the College, I have hundreds of stories, and I will share just a few of them with you.
Trash
One afternoon I was on my way to have lunch at our cafeteria and was walking across the Commons area, which was full of students, walking in all directions, going this way and that.
There was a handicap, female student a ways in front of me, walking with two crutches, the kind that are not temporary. I saw her stop, and with great effort, bent down and picked up some trash that everyone else was just walking over. She put it in her bag. She had my attention now, so I watched her. She made her way to a trashcan some 50 feet away, and put the trash in the can. Then she went on her way.
I was so impressed with the effort she put out to pick up the trash, and the attitude it took for her to do it, when everyone else, including me, was just ignoring it. Ever since that day, I have picked up trash whenever I see it. It may not be mine, but I live on this earth, and I don’t want trash where I live. And besides, it’s the right thing to do. She entered my life again several years later. (See the Yawara story.)
The Yawara Stick
One of my martial arts classes that I taught was self-defense. The way I taught it was a mixture of judo, karate, and just good old street fighting. When you are defending yourself, there are no rules. It helps if you have a weapon of some kind, and know how to use it. Most weapons are illegal to carry, so most of us don’t have one with us when we are out and about.
I taught my students how to make a weapon and have it on their person all the time, and never have it questioned. It was my version of a yawara stick. It consisted of a dowel that was cut just to the length of the width of your palm, from the thumb side, to the little finger side. A big hand would use a ¾ inch Dowel, a small hand used a ½ inch dowel. On each end a small knob, like the ones on drawers, was screwed on. Then you painted it some wonderful pattern that you liked. Perhaps like a totem pole, and place it on an aluminum chain, then carried it around your neck as a necklace. It made a wonderful conversation piece when people asked you what it was. Make up a good story. My story was that an Indian friend gave it to me as a symbol of friendship, and protection.
When needed for self-defense. It was accessible with either hand, the aluminum chain broke easily, and it was a devastating weapon when you knew how to use it. I taught my students how to use it, and they all made themselves one for about two dollars.
Now the best part. One of my self-defense classes was for the physically challenged. I was disgusted when my students in that class told me how many times they had been targeted by thieves – they were easy, soft targets. ATM machines were the worst spot. They would take their money out, someone would grab them from behind, or knock them down, and take the money.
My girl with the two crutches, from the trash story showed up in my class. She didn’t know anything about what I knew about her. As it turned out, she had been robbed three times at her local ATM where she went to get her money.
Because of their various handicaps, everyone in the class had to have individual training on how to use the yawara stick. I worked with each one of them until they were proficient in its use. I loved these classes – every one of them had an immediate need for what I was teaching, and worked very hard to learn. They were very special people, and truly an inspiration to me.
I was in my office one day, when the phone rang. It was my crutches girl. She was so excited she could hardly talk. I told her to slow down, because I was hard of hearing and had trouble hearing on the phone. She told me she had just been attacked again at her ATM. A man had grabbed her from behind. She grabbed her yawara stick from her neck, broke the chain, and slammed it into his knee. When he fell down she hit him in the head with it. She was very strong in the arms from using crutches, all of her life. He went down to the ground and was still there when the police arrived. She had a cell phone. Don’t you just love it?
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My summers diving with the Hansens, on Catalina Island, brought me to the attention of Harold Warner. Harold was the diver for the glass bottom boats. He had a barge parked in ‘Lovers Cove’, just south of Avalon, (it is the barge with the aquariums on it in the picture on the post How I Got to Work on Catalina Island. I’m the one on the right.) This cove had great kelp beds and lots of fish in it, and was where the glass bottom boats took their passengers to see the marine life in the Marine Gardens
My Summers at Catalina Island
John's Book of Life 