John Morris

My children are an absolute gift as I got to have and experience them through two entirely different periods of our society's development from the hippies to whatever in the world the last 20 years have been. I went to Cabrillo and partied and surfed, so got drafted for Nam, ended up a 1st Lt. by the time I got out. Went to Fresno State with a wife and baby girl and my first job after college was coaching and teaching at Kerman Jt. Union High School. Offered a much higher paying job with the Manteca Unified School District and ended up my 32 year teaching career there at the Continuation High School teaching and facilitating groups concerning the "disease of addiction;" something I have a lifetime of personal experience with as the Army taught me alcohol and drugs killed fear and alcohol would have killed me if I hadn't gotten sober finally in 1994.Two massive heart attacks later I am grateful for every moment I am vertical and breathing, and, sober, so I may feel and experience my experiences.

I was so shy and lived in La Selva Beach instead of Watsonville so I never really got to know many students except for the guys on my sports teams, and a few girls in my classes, (x-tracked classes) which narrowed my social experiences way down. I can remember always walking across campus with my eyes on the blacktop and a couple of times, in my white sunbleached hair and brown suntanned body, 6foot 3inches built like the competitive swimmer and surfer I was, I would pass a group of "in" girls and I would hear, "you stuck up SOB" yelled out and I would think "if you only knew the fear I walked in you might not yell that." The first date I had in high school was half-way through spring semester of my senior year when a girl asked me out as I was too shy too ask anyone out.

I went to Elementary school in Garden City, Kansas and Junior High in Reedley, California