The Old College Try

This past weekend I celebrated a "substitute Homecoming" with friends at our alma mater, Fordham University. Since we weren’t able to make it to the actual event this year, a friend organized a special trip instead. We were graced with an amazingly perfect autumn day that also turned out to be part of Parents' Weekend, when parents of students are invited to check out where their money is going. It was awkward and hilarious. We started the day with freely flowing mimosas, rode the Metro North, browsed the bookstore for maroon gear, enjoyed drinks as real adults at Dagger John's, ate wings at Howl at the Moon, devoured sandwiches at Tino's Deli, filled up on pitchers and bad 90s music at MugZ's, and finally headed back to the city. Unlike the days of old however, instead of going back out after a full day of partying, we found ourselves exhausted by midnight and asleep by 1 a.m. Yes indeed, we have gotten old...

I loved my college years and will always look back on them with love and affection and surprisingly few regrets. But college was not perfect or painless and I'll be damned if I ever start referring to it as, "the best years of my life." I like to think that the best is yet to come. College was, on one hand, a dream world... but it was tough at the same time, and not just academically. It contained a lot of personal changes, extreme highs and painful lows, unnecessary drama, crazy all-nighters, debilitating hangovers, and a serious sense of dread as graduation approached and you realized you were no closer to knowing what you wanted in life than the first day you set foot onto that lush green campus.

Still, compared with the “real world,” college life was grand! And making difficult decisions was just too easy! Ordering pizza at 4 am? Of course! Skipping class because it was just TOO NICE outside? Obviously. Choosing to buy vodka instead of food because your bank account didn't allow for both? That's simple! Risking your life by climbing on a roof just to watch the sun rise? Why not? Writing a paper you had a month to prepare for in four hours the night before? DONE. And then getting an A on it? YES!

Of course, there were serious things, too. Like debating the merits of Sartre vs. Kierkegaard vs. Heidegger vs. godknowswho... Or comparing literary children of nature with accounts of feral children because you developed extremely bizarre interests... Or tracking dialect changes and vowel shifts because you were suddenly going to be a linguistic anthropologist... You know, things that really prepared your for the real world. This was the essence of college.

In the end, I guess the real beauty was that those years were full of endless possibilities for the future, the present, and hell, even the past. Don't like your major? Change it. Don't like this class? Drop it. Don't like your name? Well, no one knew you in high school anyway. Just kidding. I actually didn't do any of those things. Yet looking back I realize that we were very young and very carefree and simply had faith that everything would work out in the end despite the pointless classes we took and poor decisions we made. In fact, we ASSUMED everything would work out. And as far as my classmates go, I think most of us are doing just fine, though we’ve taken a few detours and hit some bumps in the road. Like the economy, for instance. You know, little things. But in the end, regardless of things we did or didn’t do or said we’d do and couldn’t or didn’t even try to do or never expected to do in the first place or never could have predicted or were completely beyond our control… Well, the kids are all right. Really, we are. Thank you for asking. Now please, give me another beer.