I like the beaches in Orange County the best. I think Orange County has great beaches. Everything from Dana Point to Newport to Laguna; all over the place.
I went to high school in Orange County.
I grew up an only child, and I always felt as if I didn't fit in. In middle school, in grammar school, and even high school, I just didn't feel like I fit in.
I'm pretty sure I could've ended up on 'Real Housewives of Orange County.' They need a fair-skinned redhead.
At age 11 in 1960, I moved to an academic state secondary school, Harrow County Grammar School for Boys.
Initially I started writing because I felt like I didn't fit in. I just moved to a new school and I felt quite lonely. I think that's where it all started for me.
At first, I felt bad judging an entire state by one county political official, but then I found out Morrison had also helped screen public school textbooks, a topic which is another chapter in my book. The Alamo is managed by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, a group whose members can claim a relative who was living in Texas during the revolution. The fight over mismanagement of the Alamo has been going on for years.
A lot of my family is from Texas, stuff like that, so I was always in Texas, and when you grow up in Texas, around Texas, you want to go to the biggest Texas school, and UT was that.
I didn't fit in at school, and I didn't fit in at home, and I didn't know why. I was often lonely.
I actually found CrossFit on a run from my house in Orange County. I moved around with it for a while, which is the best part about it. I love it, but it was something I did because I enjoyed the camaraderie aspect of it, not so much the competing side of it.
At school I pretended I had a normal life, but I felt lonely all the time and different from everyone else. I never felt like I fit in, and I wasn't allowed to participate in after-school activities, go to sports events or parties or date boys. Many times I had to make up stories about why I couldn't do anything with my classmates.
I was bullied pretty badly especially in middle school. High school was not as bad as middle school, but I was not a macho kid at all. And the kids saw me as different from a very, very early age.
I really had a rough time in middle school. Middle school to me was the way most people explain high school. Then in high school I had a blast. I basically did everything that you would do in high school or in college, so it really wasn't a difficult thing to pull out.
Middle school was probably my hardest time. I was trying to fit in for so long, until about junior year of high school when I realized that trying to fit into this one image of perfection was never going to make me happy.
All my life I've been lonely. I've been lonely at crowded parties. I've been lonely in the middle of kissing a girl and I've been lonely at camp with hundreds of fellows around. But now I'm not lonely any more.
When my first wife & I began the school, we had one main idea: to make the school fit the child - instead of making the child fit the school.