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It is not known whether he did become friends with the President's son.
"The following years, from 1925 to 1929, saw the young Mr. Hubbard,
between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, as a budding and enthusiastic
world traveler and adventurer. His father was sent to the Far East and,
having the financial support of his wealthy grandfather, L. Ron Hubbard
spent these years journeying through Asia." (5)
"He was up and down the China coast several times in his teens from
Ching Wong Tow to Hong Kong and inland to Peking and Manchuria.
"In China he met an old magician whose ancestors had served in the
court of Kublai Khan and a Hindu who could hypnotize cats. In the high
hills of Tibet he lived with bandits who accepted him because of his
honest interest in them and their way of life.
"In the remote reaches of western Manchuria he made friends with the
ruling warlords by demonstrating his horsemanship. On an island in the
South Pacific, the fearless boy calmed the natives by exploring a cave
that was supposed to be haunted and showing them that the rumbling sound
from within was nothing more sinister than an underground river. Deep in
the jungles of Polynesia he discovered an ancient burial ground steeped
in the tradition of heroic warriors and kings...." (6)
Heady adventures for a teenager!
The truth, however, is a bit more believable. At the age of
thirteen, the Hubbards had moved to Bremerton, Washington, where young
Ron was an eighth grader at Union High School. Hubbard enjoyed
activities such as hiking and camping at the nearby Boy Scout
campground.
Two years later, when Ron was a sophomore at Queen Anne High School,
his father was unexpectedly posted to Guam. It was decided that while
his mother would join her husband in Guam for the two-year posting, Ron
would go to live with his grandparents and aunts in Helena and finish
high school.
However, to mollify Ron, the father suggested that he spend part of
the summer with them in Guam before returning to school. So in May of
1927, Ron and his mother sailed to Guam on the steamship President
Madison, with stops in Honolulu, Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and
Manila. Mother and son arrived in Guam in June, and Ron spent the month
teaching English to native children who were apparently spellbound by
his thatch of red hair.
In July, the young Hubbard sailed back home, and was registered by
September as a junior at Helena High School, where he joined the
editorial staff of the school newspaper as the jokes editor.
In the spring of his junior year, however, Hubbard suddenly
disappeared from both home and school. There was a rumor that he had a
fight with a teacher and didn't want to face being expelled from the
school. He went first to visit an aunt and uncle in nearby Seattle, then
caught a train to San Diego to catch a ship bound for Guam. Although he
couldn't sail without permission from his father, his father obligingly
cabled the needed permission. Young Ron was bound once more for Guam.
In Guam, his mother tutored him to prepare him for college. In
October of 1928, Ron went with his parents for a ten-day vacation to
China, where Ron was unimpressed by the Chinese, writing in his journal:
They smell of all the baths they didn't take. The trouble with China
is, there are too many chinks here. (7)
In his journals, young Ron was already writing adventure stories,
interspersing his more mundane studies in history and geometry with
adventures stories, most often in exotic, Oriental settings.
To his father's disappointment, Ron failed the entrance exam for the
Annapolis Naval Academy. Determined to get his son into the Academy,
Harry enrolled Ron at the Swavely Preparatory School in Manassas,
Virginia, in a special program for prospective Annapolis candidates.
Inevitably, however, Ron was denied admission to the Academy because of
bad eyesight.
Next, Ron was enrolled in the Woodward School for Boys in
Washington, D.C. as a substitute for taking the College Entrance
Examination. In September of 1930, Ron was admitted to George Washington
University School of Engineering with a major in civil engineering.
If ever there was a match made not to be, it was that between young
Hubbard and the School of Engineering. Bored by studies in calculus,
chemistry and German, Ron immersed himself in starting a gliding club on
the GWU campus. Ignoring his studies, he spent every possible minute at
the nearby air
field and was soon licensed as a Commercial Glider Pilot.
Predictably, and to his parents' distress, Ron's grades for the
first semester ranged from an A in Physical Education, to a C in
Mechanical Engineering, a D in chemistry, and Fs in German and calculus,
earning him a D average, and placing him on scholastic probation.
Undaunted, Ron continued to write his stories, and in January of
1932, had his first professional article published in a flying magazine,
the Sportsman Pilot.
During the summer of 1932, Ron organized the "Caribbean Motion
Picture Expedition," renting a four-masted schooner and planning a