Mesa Musings:

Forty-seven years ago, Orange Coast College rolled out the red carpet for me.

Well, sort of.

The school provided your humble correspondent with a chance to enter higher education when not a single other institution showed the slightest interest. Those institutions looked past me for good reason, however.

In June 1962, I graduated from Costa Mesa High School.

A carefree lad who’d enjoyed high school immensely but was largely uninterested in things academic, I arrived at OCC ill-prepared for college.

But, over the next several semesters, Coast taught me how to be a student.

My options, as I stood, brow furrowed, in the high school parking lot following my graduation ceremony, were, essentially . . . zero. I stood as much chance of becoming a legitimate college student as I did of throwing a rock from my location at the corner of Fairview Street and Arlington Drive and hitting the Balboa Island Ferry.

I didn’t qualify for UCLA. I wasn’t close to being on the Westwood school’s radar screen. Had I qualified for USC — which I didn’t — my hardworking blue-collar father couldn’t have earned enough money in a decade to send me there for a semester.

UC Irvine didn’t exist, and Orange State College (now Cal State Fullerton) was a tiny school in trailers in an orange grove.

Thank God for OCC!

I perceived it as a slightly esoteric “JC” (I really didn’t know what a junior college was) with an exotic title. The name — Orange Coast College — elicited images of fragrant citrus groves cascading from sunny heights to pristine beaches splashed by translucent blue-green waves. The name screamed Southern California lifestyle!

I’d been on campus for athletic events, plays and concerts during my high school years. It seemed comfortable and friendly, and featured a few “new” buildings as well as a smattering of World War II barracks.

The summer following my junior year in high school, I worked with a guy named Angelo at a clothing shop in downtown Costa Mesa. Angelo, a worldly chap who happened to be an OCC student, was outgoing and witty. I thought him extremely cool. At 19, he was three years my senior.

“It’s a happenin’ place,” Angelo confided when I asked him for the lowdown on the college. “You can pretty much go to class when you want. There’s no tuition — just books. And the chicks, man, they’re twitchin’.”

That sealed the deal.

Coast launched its 15th academic year on Monday, Sept. 10, 1962, and I was there. Though marginally motivated, I enrolled in 14.5 units.

On the third day of classes, I attended the official convocation for the academic year in the auditorium. Founding President Basil H. Peterson offered a somewhat stodgy presentation, titled “Therefore Get Wisdom.” I got drowsy instead, as the stifling September heat did a number on the packed audience members in the un-air-conditioned building.

The convocation concluded with everyone standing and singing the Alma Mater. I learned the lyrics that very day, and sang them lustily after every football game.

My professors that fall were amazing. They convinced me early on that if I failed to put forth effort, I was destined for high school redux! That wasn’t acceptable. Clearly, I would not survive any class in which I failed to open a textbook. I learned to read a text, take meaningful lecture notes and study.

By mid-September, I was a member of OCC’s 500 Club. Joining the organization was easy. All you had to do was be one of the first 500 students to show up at Coast’s first home football game wearing a white shirt. You were admitted free of charge for the rest of the season, allowed to sit on the Pirate Stadium 50-yard line, given pompoms and expected to participate in halftime card stunts (we were the only JC in the nation that performed card stunts).

And what a season it was! The Pirates, under new Head Coach Dick Tucker, went 9-1 and won the Orange Show Bowl Game. The next year they were national champs, going 10-0 and winning the Junior Rose Bowl.

And, best of all, I survived my first semester of college!

I went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees at well-respected public and private universities. But nothing in higher education could top my first two years at Coast. They were extraordinary.

Without OCC, little of what later happened in my life would actually have happened.

I know we’re only at the beginning of the school year — and weeks away from Nov. 26 — but, with your permission, I’d like to express my thanks and gratitude a little early.

Thanks, OCC!

Now, please pass the cranberry sauce.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.