College Life

High school graduation was a very painful experience, literally. I graduated a few days after having an impacted wisdom tooth extracted. The side of my face looked as if Ali won the fight with one punch. It was also painful because my senior year was spent in a different school and school district than the one I had gone to for the previous eleven years.

The summer after my senior year I had the opportunity to work for an oil company as a roustabout. It was hot, hard work, but I really enjoyed learning a little bit about the oil business. I worked on a crew with some guys that were in my senior class, and a few others along the way. One guy I worked with tried to kill me, which made the summer even more of an adventure. I got tired of him making fun of me for my convictions, so I told him to leave me alone. "Barnett, I'm going to kill you. He jumped on me and started choking me. He was probably about twenty-four, I was eighteen. Before I was able to start my defensive maneuvers, the crew pulled him off of me. He was one crazy dude. He looked like Charles Manson, without the mark on his forehead.

That summer I was so excited about going to college. I decided to go to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. My sister, Terry, was going there -- they also let me in! I visited her during spring break and had a great time. I stayed with Mike Lincoln and even went on a job at night with him gathering turkeys. The turkey sandwiches at breaktime were the best I ever had!

My sister worked on the school newspaper, so she had a bound copy of all the newpapers. I took her newspapers for the summer, and read them every night. The day to leave for Harding was one of the most exciting in my life. My sister had already gone with a friend because she was a resident assistant, so I drove her old Nova a few days later.

If there was one word to describe how I felt when I arrived at Harding, it would be one word -- PEACE. Every anxiety I had was gone. The future looked bright!