Shelton College

In May of 2005 I stopped by Cape Canaveral and visited what was left of Shelton College. Reverend Dr. McIntyre’s four-year institution of higher learning had closed its doors thirteen years before in 1992. There wasn’t much that remained. The boys’ and girls’ dorms had been reconstituted into condos. The main college building was now a dilapidated sign company. And the jungle in front of Satellite Beach had been leveled. It was now a residential neighborhood filled with split-levels, basketball hoops and two car garages.

The only building to remain unchanged was the Under the Stars Hotel.

In September 1971 Cape Canaveral was a depressed city. The American opinion of the NASA Space Program had moved from high exuberance to the low doldrums in a mere twenty-four months after the lunar landing. A kind “been there, done that, bought the t-shirt” mindset developed. I suppose most Americans felt the way I did. We landed on the moon, hit a few golf balls around and discovered it was boring.

I had been brought up on the space paintings and drawings of Chesley Bonestell. His lunar vision had colonized my mind; the moon was supposed to be mountainous, filled with high peaks and vast, flattened seas of hardened lava. The Hollywood lunar set of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was pure Bonstell. In reality, the landscape was just an unending rolling plain of gray dust. The lime lakes down Vanderhoof Road in Majestik Township were more intriguing.

The moon turned out to be no big deal.

Interest in the space program waned, tourism fell and by the summer of 1971 businesses were fleeing Cape Canaveral. It was as if the whole city was part of a gigantic closeout sale. That’s how the Reverend Dr. McIntyre got his hands on the property. Desperate people in desperate times do desperate things. The Reverend walked away with a complex of buildings for a pittance.

The center of the complex was the Under the Stars Hotel. During its heyday in the late 1960’s it was the place to go. Partiers from as far as Atlanta would travel to the Cape just to be part of the scene. In September of 1971 it was the cafeteria for Shelton College. In those first months it was not uncommon to have a group of partygoers pull up to the hotel in hopes of fun, frolic and fornication only to find themselves in the college snack bar.

I didn't studying much during my semester at Shelton. I remember buying text books and sitting in class and doing all the stuff that you do in college, but the memory that stands out the most is of Satellite Beach.

I loved that beach.

Satellite Beach stretched for miles in both directions. It seemed endless. At the time I was there it was completely depopulated. On some days you would find a couple of surfers, but more often than not the waves were few and tepid. Every so often a stray dog would wander by, sniff at the Atlantic surf and then go on its way. Most of the time it was just me. After class, I would sit on the sand underneath a palm tree and read.

Is there anything better than that?

One October afternoon I grabbed my latest paperback book and headed for the beach. You should know that there was a paved road to the shore, but that it meandered around and around.

But there was another way.

A trail that led through the jungle seemed to be a quicker and more direct route. I had seen that path every day and had been tempted to take it. And though I had never seen anyone actually on it, others must have taken that route. I mean, it looked well traveled. It was a path, after all.

After a second’s worth of hesitation, I started walking nonchalantly into the jungle. Immediately I notice the leafy growth on both sides of the trail. Everything seemed so incredibly green. Life was everywhere. It surfaced from the jungle in twerps, tweets and chirps. In front of me a swarm of Florida love bugs flew in random, stupid circles.

At that moment I fancied my self as a kind of ad hoc naturalist, a sort of everyman Darwin. I was an exploer seeking an understanding of nature and at one with the natural world.

Halfway into this complicated maze of growth I heard a rustle off to the left. A few feet in front of me a ten-foot rattlesnake crossed my path. It turned its head, sized me up and then sped into the jungle on the other side of the trail.

It would have been interesting to observe the snake more closely. Its speckled pattern, for instance, seemed incredibly complex. Also it didn’t seem to slither, but somehow used its scales to scoot through the foliage. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to take notes. At that moment I was screaming and running for my life.

At some point while in this mindless panic I left the path and flailed through the brush towards the road. I tripped and fell head first into a nest of bristles. I lost my book. Unfazed, I pulled myself up and continued my flight. I did not stop until I was back in my dorm room with the door locked behind me.

I discovered something about myself on that afternoon.
I hate nature.

I completed just one semester at Shelton College. I returned to Akron, Ohio, in January ’72 and did not revisit Cape Canaveral until 2005. By then Satellite Beach was more crowded, more commercial, and barely matched the scenes from my memory.

One memory was from December 1971. In the early morning hours I went to the beach to view the launch of a weather satellite. The newspaper described it as a minor launching. I sat on the sand and stared across the ocean to where, supposedly, at 5:30 AM the launch would take place.

5:30 AM came and went.

Another dud, I thought. Typical of the ghost town that Cape Canaveral was quickly becoming.

And then, in the distance, there was a spark followed by a growing roar. A brilliant column of fire appeared. Light flooded the horizon changing the sky into a false dawn. The fiery column rose higher and higher becoming a brilliant sun, then a white comet, and finally a shooting star.

There is only one word I can use to describe this.
Unforgettable.

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My Favorite Books (Non-Fiction)