Melvin Belcher

I am happy to reminisce about my time and experience at Modesto Junior College, but first I want to establish a reference point that is important to me. The day after graduation on June 10, 1948, I commenced a 65-year marriage with Barbara Nesslage. It has been an exciting ride and we remember MJC on June 11th each year.

Modesto Junior College was an important interlude between three years on a U.S. Navy ship in the Pacific, and my exciting professional and educational years.

Having spent 50 years in the educational arena, I look back and consider that the professors and their teaching ability were a high mark in my experience. I particularly remember the bicycle-riding Dr. Pobantz, an unflappable teacher who passed his left hand over the top of his head to scratch or massage his right ear. Also, outstanding was math professor James Pierce. He insisted that I go to Stanford University rather than UC Berkeley. I had trouble with chemistry at Modesto High, but Ronald Julien soon convinced me that chemistry was not only interesting it was also understandable. In Professor Weinberg’s surveying class I learned how to step off 100 feet to within 6 inches—a requirement to pass his class. Dr. Herbert Florcken made American history interesting and his class served as a respite between technical courses. I even learned to play some tennis from Fred Earle, but it wasn’t enough to defeat my wife Bobbie two weeks later on our honeymoon. I should admit that I took a German class from Mr. Wilson, but some years later my family accused me of flunking my class after ordering at a restaurant in Germany.