What fun to go trekking about my college town and campus late this summer.
I acknowledge that I tend to look backward with a pair of rose-colored glasses firmly set upon my freckled nose. Still, isn’t it better to learn from the sad moments and plunge fully forward than it is to wallow in what didn’t go perfectly forty years ago?
York College of Pennsylvania was a good place to make friends, learn from some excellent (and some eccentric) professors, and broaden my small-town-girl horizons.
Even with my Facebook frustrations, I am happy the site exists because after all these years I’ve reconnected with people who are still fun to know from high school and the multi-states I’ve lived in since leaving home at 18. And going back again. 
And leaving 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 to me on every level: new learning! New foods! New 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—we thought we were the cat’s meow when a family moved there from Jamaica. After the novelty wore off, they were treated the same as the rest of us—friends with the same issues we faced.
But in college, I got to have friends from China (wish we’d kept in touch, she was an utterly fascinating science geek), from New Jersey (you folks know who are you are—and why can some of you speak proper English and with others I need a translator, eh, Tom?), from anywhere, USA.
Learning, learning, learning.
I was so naive that I didn’t understand that we were different, I just kept seeing people as people. My crowning moment in being non-prejudiced was when I was in Doc Big Jim Morrison’s history class. If there was ever a Virginian-accented tower of a man who made history come alive for his students, it was him. I took every class of his that I could and still hope he knew I did it on purpose. We were discussing slavery, a despicable horror on our nation’s history. I was thinking that I wished we had some black students in the class so I could get their perspective. In the next moment, my buddy (history, biology—thank you for dissecting my rat for me) Troy shot his arm up in the air to make a comment.
I had stopped seeing his dark brown skin because I’d seen him as a person for months. I wish I could recall what Troy added to the conversation because I’m betting it was profound as only a 19 year-old can be. But that’s long gone.
College was a place to make friends of various ages, too. Some I connected to through the odd retail job (thanks for re-connecting via Facebook, K), others through whichever apartment I happened to be living in, some through knowing this random person or that one. Some were a few years out of the mess that was Vietnam, here to remake their lives. Some did that successfully and others struggled.
Just like the rest of us.
sophisticated Jerseyite roommate, J, was an old hand at this, but for me it was a novelty. To this day if one or the other of us is in town, we’ll zap a picture of the place we were sure was a cover for the mob and send it off, laughing at old memories.
It was picking up pizza to go from the 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.
It was making friends with Jean (50something) and Susan (70something), 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 ever known—and in a male-laden industry. Susan was enthralling because she’d lived in Paris for many years. Can you imagine! How sweet and kind they were to put up with college students shenanigans, parties, and disregard for the hours they tried to sleep.
Becoming courageous.
Memorable was winning third place in poetry in the Bob Hoffman Writing Contest. Professor Ben (yes, the most eccentric of them all) McKulik handed out award notices in the class and told each student why they won. He got to me and said, “Mur, we don’t know why this poem won, it just did.” To this day, I love the darkness is one of the favorite of the many things I’ve ever written.
It’s my friend JE consoling me the spring I’d gotten the news that a high school friend had died in a car accident. My heart so full of angst that I couldn’t articulate a word of it, he drove me to a deserted railway car, stuck me inside and told me to scream for everything I was worth. I yelled my grief until my throat was raw and while it 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.
Going back to campus was seeing my friend K for the first time in fifteen years and having a tour of the library archives. It was seeing my college in a new light long after graduating.
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… Read more »
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.