I messed around and failed to hand in a term paper in the second semester of 10th grade. Went on to do 11th grade, 12th grade, and prepared to graduate... I thought.
The counselor called me in and told me I would have to repeat the second semester of 10th grade English to graduate. Ouch. My classmates graduated and I was left with no option except to stay in high school an additional year, essentially take some busy-work classes first semester, and then do 2nd Semester of 10th Grade English to get credit for that stupid paper.
1968-69 -- Butler High School, Huntsville, Alabama.
I had been dating a girl for 2+ years, and both of us were kind of bored. I was talking to that girlfriend at her locker between classes, and saw, over her shoulder, this really, REALLY CUTE girl who was half-Japanese. I was always a sucker for Asian beauty, and, remember, it was the late sixties: she had on the shortest skirt, revealing the longest legs, and there was a sweetness and innocence about her that drew me like a magnet. That, and the legs.
I asked one of my buddies who she was, and he told me he knew her: Amy Potter.
2nd Semester comes around, I get placed in the English Class. The teacher, it turns out, was young, in her first year of teaching and had been my cousin's roommate at Jax State. This was getting easier.

Into that classroom walked... yep, Amy Potter.
That was the best semester of high school I ever experienced. I have always believed God allowed that failure to make our paths cross.
I asked her out, and she informed me that she was 15, and her father would not allow his girls to date or have boyfriends until they were at least 16. I told her I would wait. She said, even so, she doubted her dad, an Army Sergeant-Major would allow his 16-year-old to date an almost-19-year-old, repeating-a-grade, long-haired drummer. But I was determined to make her mine, and I persisted. When she turned 16, I finagled my way into an opportunity to stop by her house on some pretext, and I met her mom. Eiko was a tiny, sweet, and very loving little Japanese mother, and I could see her as a great mother-in-law. Eiko fell in love with me, and approved, and I eventually convinced SGM Sam that I was okay. We married when I was 21 and she was 18, just a month after she graduated.
That was June 25, 1971. She was, and remains, the love of my life, and I am the President of the "Married UP" club.
"God is excited to show you mercy. He rises to give you His compassion." (Isaiah 30:18)
"For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous;
you surround them with your favor as with a shield." (Psalm 5:12)