PORTLAND (AP) – Merle Beane was just months from graduating when he walked out of Portland High School for the last time 64 years ago after being told he didn’t belong there. Now, Beane’s got his diploma.

Afflicted by a condition that made his hands shake involuntarily, Beane struggled as he filled out an absentee form after missing two days of school due to the flu in 1939.

A woman in the office told him, “‘People like you shouldn’t be in school,”‘ Beane recalled. “I don’t know who it was. It could have been a parent, but still, to this day, I just don’t know.”

Sixty-four years later, Beane sent an audiotape recounting the event to Portland High’s principal. The tape told of Beane’s walk to the local dump afterward to scour for pennies, and of his love for school. And he said he wished to have his diploma.

“The tape he sent me, it’s just incredible to hear,” said Principal Michael Johnson, who was moved to tears by the story.

“I’ve listened to it five or six times. He would talk about how he absolutely loves this school, the smell of it, the books, the chalkboard,” said Johnson.

Johnson pulled Beane’s transcript, which showed he was on track for graduation and confirmed that Beane had later gotten an equivalency diploma.

The principal went to visit Beane, who’s confined to his bed because of medical problems, and brought a Portland High diploma along. Johnson said Beane was speechless at first, but the words finally came. “He must have said thank you a hundred times,” Johnson said. Beane insists he didn’t drop out of high school. “I left. I left because I was told to get out.”

And I did what I was told,” said Beane. But Beane, who held a number of jobs before working for Ellis Paper Board in Scarborough for 30 years, gradually realized he had made a mistake.

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