When is the last time you visited your college campus or town?
I tend to look backward with a pair of rose-colored glasses firmly set upon my freckled nose. Isn’t it better to learn from sad moments, plunging forward than wallowing in what didn’t go perfectly forty years ago?
My College
York College of Pennsylvania was a good place to make friends, be educated by excellent (and eccentric) professors, and broaden my small-town-girl horizons.
Despite Facebook frustrations, I’ve reconnected with friends from high school, college, and the multi-states I’ve lived in since leaving home. And going home again. Hmm, leaving home again.
In the 1960s, York was a city beset with race relation problems. When I hit campus in 1977, it was a place of excitement on every level. New learning! Unusual foods! Fantastic friends! People of color around me! Growing up in rural Pennsylvania farm country, we were a school of diverse … white folks. Polish, Italian, Slovak, Anglo-Saxon. We thought we were the cat’s meow when a family moved in from Jamaica. After the novelty wore off, they were treated like everyone else. They were teens facing the same issues we faced.
In college, I had a friend from China (wish we’d kept in touch, she was a fascinating science geek). New Jersey friends left a lasting impression. You know who are you are. And why can some of you speak proper English and for others I need a translator, eh, Tom? More friends from anywhere, USA.
Learning What Prejudice Is
I was so naive that I didn’t see people as different because of skin color. Kids were different because I was a country kid. Others grew up in big cities or other countries, or something apart from my upbringing and wasn’t that just fascinating?
Seeing people as people is simply what it was. My crowning moment in being non-prejudiced was when I was in Doc “Big Jim” Morrison’s history class. If there was ever a Virginia-accented tower of a man who made history come alive for students, it was him. I took every class of his that I could and hope he knew I did it on purpose. We were discussing slavery, a despicable horror on our nation’s history. I wished we had some black students in the class so I could get their perspective. My buddy (history, biology—thank you for dissecting my rat) Troy shot his arm up to make a comment.
I had stopped seeing his dark brown skin because I’d seen him as my friend for months. Friends for his kindness and sense of humor—especially when dealing with that crappy rat. I wish I recalled what Troy added to the Morrison conversation. I’m betting it was profound as only a 19 year-old can be. But that’s long gone.
Other Lessons in Diversity
College was a place to make friends of various ages. A few I connected to via retail jobs, others through whichever apartment I lived in, some through mutually friends. A few were recently out of the mess that was Vietnam, at YCP to remake their lives. Some did that successfully while others struggled.
Just like the rest of us.
York College taught me how to order Chinese take out from the dive down the street from our dive apartment. My sophisticated Jerseyite roommate, J, was an old hand at this, but for me it was a novelty. To this day if one of us is in town, we’ll zap a picture of the place we were sure was a mob front. We’ll message it it off, laughing at old memories.
College was picking up pizza from a joint on the corner of South George Street. Climbing in one door of my beau’s massive old Impala, out the other creaky door (B, did you know what WD40 was? Ha), around the car, in the door, scoot across the seat, out and around again. It was a good way to kill time until the pizza was ready. I’m pretty sure we were sober.
Diversity was making friends with Jean (50something) and Susan (70something). Two charming ladies stuck in the apartments they had lived in for years that were now owned by the college. Jean was a novelty as the first corporate female VP I’d known—in a male-laden industry. Susan was enthralling because she had lived in Paris for many years. Can you imagine! How sweet they were to put up with college student shenanigans, parties, and disregard for their sleeping hours.
More College Positives
Memorable was winning third place in poetry in the Bob Hoffman Writing Contest. Professor Ben (the most eccentric of them all) McKulik handed out award notices in class. He told each student why they won. Arriving at me, he said, “Mur, we don’t know why this poem won, it just did.” To this day, I love the darkness is a favorite of the many things I’ve written.
York is walking through the Farmer’s Market that’s been there for a 100 years and having NO memory of it. It’s checking in with chums and them assuring me, yes we went there for cheap lunches from time to time. How have I forgotten that?
College was learning to drive a stick shift, badly, very badly at first. I got good enough for a friend let me drive his Porsche 90 mph down a straight stretch of desolate road.
It’s JE consoling me the spring I’d gotten news that a high school friend had died in a car accident. My heart was so full of angst that I couldn’t articulate a word of it. He drove me to a deserted railway car, stuck me inside, telling me to scream for everything I was worth. I yelled my grief until my throat was raw. While that didn’t change a thing, the exhaustion brought on by the effort enabled me to sleep. My friend sat in a chair nearby and watched over me.
Friends are valuable treats we give ourselves during the toughest of times.
Re-Experiencing College
Going back to campus was seeing my friend K for the first time in fifteen years. A YCP Librarian, she gave me a tour of the library archives. It was seeing my college in a new light long after graduating.
It was knowing that the town, disgruntled in the decade before I arrived, provided me a college experience I still treasure. I don’t live in that time period anymore. But I can glance back, saying to myself that whatever bad happened has been long left behind. Moving forward is the only way to go.
* Read, High School Reunions
As Thomas Wolfe penned “You Can’t Go Home Again”
I know when I went back to my college, it seemed familiar, but also totally alien to me.
I too, wished I had stayed in touch with some of my friends from college. Some I have even forgotten their names.
Grab your yearbook and Facebook, William. Good way to track down some of those pals.
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful story RoseMary! Sounds like a wonderful time in your life, and personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with focusing on the best of times in our past.
You often inspire me to keep moving forward, Marquita. Holding onto the bad–well, that’s just bad behavior! So I’d rather enjoy remembering all the college antics and forget about the other parts.
I could feel the emotions you have encountered while writing this piece RoseMary. And, I hope when I reach your age, then I am able to look back towards my school & college days with the vey same nostalgia. After all, these are the golden years in anyone’s life.
I like to think I’m living my golden years now, Moumita, and next year and the next–but I understand what you’re saying. Those days before having to work all day every year and worry about housing and savings and retirement–there was something blissful about it. Naivety, no doubt. I can live with that!
Wonderful post Rose Mary – one of my favourites so far! I felt the emotion in your words and was transported back to 1977 – the year I was born! Your college days sound fun and carefree – no mobile phones, no internet, no social media. How different lufe must have been.
What stuck out to me was your friend taking you to a railway car to scream out your hurt and pain after losing someone in an accident. I have often imagined letting out my emotions in a large field where nobody can see or hear me. What a caring friend.
Phoenicia, a college chum and I were just discussing that we’re glad cell phones with cameras weren’t around when we were in college. We were young and foolish–too often! I would not want to be held responsible now for the mistakes I made then. On the other hand, if they had been around, would we have behaved more? 🙂
Jim was a good friend to do that, Phoenicia. He also rescued my roommates and I from a 3″ cockroach, but that’s another story.
Glad you liked the post–and now I know how old you are, you youngster!
I started at a community college for my first two years of undergrad and lived off-campus, and then when I finished undergrad, I was married. So I never really had a full-blown college experience. My love and I visited Idaho University a year and a half ago on the drive up to meet my parents, and his reactions were reminiscent of the feelings invoked in your post.
Jeri, I lived on campus only the first year, then college housing for two-years before the infamous slum, row-house. You’re right in that the housing changes the dynamics of the experience. I’m not sure one is better than the other. Glad your love is sticking with the fond memories.
I enjoyed this! That is all!
Glad you liked the post, Dawn. Ever been to that part of the state?
Good to know you got a fairly early introduction to the exotic folks of New Jersey.
Best college beau ever: New Jerseyite.
First glimpse of the Atlantic: with the Jersey beau.
First realization that some folks in NJ need to be translated for me to understand: oh yeah, same beau’s bro.
Sounds like you have really nice college memories. I definitely picked the wrong college for me. I dropped out with a 3.9 GPA at 19 years old because I just couldn’t go back because I was so miserable.. Luckily, I lived at a time where I could finish my degree mostly online. I’m so envious of people who have those fond memories. It sounds like your college days were very formative, eye opening, with a good amount of fun.
Bummer on having to leave college like that, Erica. But you had a glimpse of it–and it is not for everyone. I think it’s great that you were able to finish your degree without having to go to a campus. Oh yes, I sure learned a lot about life!
Very cool, Rose. I never went away to college as the universities and college were in my hometown of Winnipeg. But I love the sentimentality of “going home” or “going back” and seeing how things have changed (or not!) Life is such a roadmap of memories and moments!
So right, Doreen, life is a roadmap of our memories and the moments that make them up! Going home can mean so many different things–it’s place and it’s people.
I’m so glad you moved away and went to college. It’s when we finally became “friends” instead of sisters.
Sometimes it’s that old distance makes the heart grow fonder … although this distance is ridiculous!
What a lovely look back at your college years. We are all doing well if we can glance back and say that whatever bad happened has been long left behind and moving forward is the only way to go.
Thank you, Donna. I think it’s easier to drudge up old wrongs and re-live them than it is to forgive, forget what you can and move forward. I’d rather move forward and let all that bad stuff dissipate behind me.