The summer before I left for college, I remember the music video for "Walk This Way" by Run-DMC and Aerosmith being in heavy rotation on MTV. I watched the video a couple of times at the house of a young lady I'd met at the county fair that summer. I also saw the movies Top Gun and Ferris Bueller's Day Off with her before heading off for my freshman year of college.
I'd spent the summer lifting weights religiously three days a week. I believe in late May or early June I bought a mail-order bodybuilding course and kept at it all summer. I looked lean and muscular when I went off to school.
I had just turned 19 that summer and the legal drinking age was being changed to 21 in September. However, since I had turned the legal drinking age of 19 just prior to that, a so-called grandfather clause allowed me to be treated as a 21-year-old for liquor law purposes. Consequently, I knew I'd be able to go to the college bar or any other bar I cared to give my patronage. Also, I could buy alcohol anywhere I chose. I'm not suggesting I planned on drinking copious amounts of alcohol or being a party animal, but I did appreciate the advantageous position I found myself in.
My sister was a junior already attending the small, liberal arts college I'd now also be attending. Some other students from our high school were also on campus. I'd visited her plenty of times and liked the campus. I was looking forward to college. The problem, however, was that I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I guess I thought I'd go to college and figure out my life's path as I went. If I could have found a good paying job right out of high school, I probably wouldn't have gone to college.
I'd only been an average high school student, graduating with about a 2.6 grade point average. My ACT score had been decent, and the college had accepted me, so I decided to give it a shot. The wrestling coach had called me over the summer because I'd been fairly successful in that sport during high school. I told him I wasn't sure if I wanted to wrestle in college and we left it at that.
The Dorm
My roommate had contacted me over the summer to say "hello" and discuss what we might need for our room. He was impressed to find that I had qualified for the state tournament in wrestling. He was a basketball player and would be joining the college team. He seemed like a nice guy over the phone.
Mark was about the best roommate I could have hoped for. He had also attended a small high school in Iowa. We were both athletes. We were both interested in dating the opposite sex.
We lived on the first floor of our dorm - 1 South. My older sister lived in the same dorm but on the third floor I believe.
A lounge with cable television, vending machines, and a kitchen area was located on the ground level. A small gathering of people appeared around 10:30 each evening to watch M*A*S*H reruns.
Initiation for 1 South involved a lot of running, push-ups, and shaving cream. Thankfully, we had no alcohol forced upon us, but we did have a floor party toward the end of the year at a nearby park.
Each freshman guy on the floor had to locate at least one freshman female student to introduce to the upperclassmen on the floor. Fortunately, I found three young ladies to help me out. One of the young ladies was named Angie. She was a cute blond that I ended up having some classes with.
Our neighbors next door had a sign posted on their door for a while.
Position available for beautiful, young female. Acquire within.
I'm sure they meant to write "inquire within" but I understood what their aim was.
A few years later I would see a funny sign on someone else's door.
Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire.
The guys on the floor were all friendly. I was still a quiet, introverted person then. So, some of the guys I got to know well while others I didn't talk to at all. Three guys shared a room across the hall from us. Andy, the big one was nicknamed Hoss. The smaller guy with a mustache and beard was nicknamed Wolf. And the tall basketball player went by the moniker Ditch. I watched a VHS copy of The Breakfast Club with Wolf one day.
Orientation
Orientation took place for a few days before classes began. I met a cute girl named Mary in my orientation group. Her mother worked in the Controller's Office on campus, so I believe she and her older sister received free tuition.
I visited Mary one day after lunch and she was just getting up for the day. She had just gotten out of bed and yet decided to have a beer. She offered me one as well, but I demurred as I had just finished eating lunch. However, she insisted so I acquiesced and had one. Mary and I explored campus a bit before classes began trying to acquaint ourselves with the buildings we'd be having our classes in. When looking through an old campus newspaper, I realized both Mary and I were absent from our orientation picture? What were we doing at the time?
I recall taking part in some sort of orientation games one evening I was told would be fun. Of course, it wasn't. Nonetheless, I believe that Playfair still bills itself as "The Most Popular Campus Attraction For New Student Orientation." I've also read, "Playfair is the most popular campus attraction in history for new student orientation programs."
To be fair I am a quiet, introverted person. So, it wasn't really a good fit for me. As I recall, I found myself being asked to have a fake argument with a freshman girl I didn't know. I have a feeling she was on the quiet side as well so that activity didn't go too well. I seem to recall all of the freshmen being asked to throw our shoes into a big pile toward the end of the night. Then we were tasked with locating our shoes out of hundreds of pairs of shoes. I truly thought I was never going to find my shoes that night. I wanted to share a few choice words with the Orientation Group Leader who had promised us a fun evening.
I think before we began classes a dance was held on the so-called campus mall near Old Main. I was standing on the sidewalk alongside Mark overlooking the throng of students dancing when a girl asked me to dance. I joined her on the lawn to dance. It turned out that she knew my older sister and that she also lived in the same dorm as Mark and me.
When the dance was over, I walked her to our dorm. We approached some double doors leading to a staircase.
"Should we part here? Or do you want to walk me up to my room?" she asked. I, of course, walked her to her room.
Alex (not her real name) and I became kind of close for a while. We drank and danced at the college bar. She'd visit Mark and me in our room sometimes. We both worked in the cafeteria. I think we attended a screening of West Side Story one evening in a small auditorium on campus. And some evenings we'd watch reruns of M*A*S*H at 10:30 PM in the basement lounge with some other students. She made it clear that she thought of me as more than a friend. But I wasn't sure if I wanted to commit to a serious relationship.
I tried to keep working out with weights as I had over the summer. One day I asked some guy nearby how to adjust the pins on the squat rack. He kindly showed me what to do.
"Are you a bodybuilder or a powerlifter?" I asked.
"Power - pure power," he replied. "My diet's not good enough to be a bodybuilder," he added.
I got to know Mike a bit and saw him working out religiously in the weight room. He could have simply been working out to stay in shape or for sports conditioning. Perhaps my question had seemed odd to him. But my instincts must have been right because a couple years later The Trumpet had an article about how he'd just won the Drug-Free Powerlifting Midwest Regional in Chicago.
Settling In and Campus Life
Being an introvert, I found it hard to get used to having a roommate and the claustrophobic feeling being surrounded by all the students on campus. I relished the times my roommate wasn't around, and I had the room to myself. I also learned to take long walks off campus and to find somewhat private spots in the library.
I would sometimes visit the Pamida discount department store in College Towne Plaza which also had a popular pharmacy and a few other stores. I would mainly visit Pamida to buy a tablet of paper. If the weather was bitterly cold or I was short on time, I would just buy a tablet of paper in the college bookstore. I felt a little guilty buying a tablet of paper there knowing I was paying a lot more to have a tablet of paper with the name of the college emblazoned on it.
I was pretty stressed out that first year of college. I hadn't cared about grades in college but now I did. I thought my very fate might depend on those grades and I did make the Dean's List a few times. I didn't care much for working in the cafeteria at first but eventually got used to it. I was so used to my old routine of school, farm chores, family dinners, TV, church, and social life that college took some getting used to.
I eventually developed a routine for classes, studying, work, recreation, and leisure.
The college had a daily newsletter called The Page. The weekly newspaper was The Trumpet. The Page had reminders for study sessions, club meetings, chapel and bible study schedules, and recreation and athletic events.
For example:
STUDY SESSION for Introduction to Philosophy will meet tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. in Luther Hall 308.
Or:
PORNOGRAPHY and the first amendment is the title of this week's convocation address. Convocation is held tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. in Neumann Auditorium. Caution: slides will be shown - some of which may be offensive to some persons.
The Trumpet showed up in my mailbox each week with columns, sports news, and sometimes coupons.
Alex had reached the point where she insisted on settling whether we were going to be a couple or not. I told her I was too stressed out and too concerned about academics to be in a relationship.
After Christmas break, I was asked to join the wrestling team. They needed a 126 pounder. I joined but wasn't much help. I was kind of small to be at 126. Plus, my heart just wasn't in it any more like it had been in high school.
The best part of wrestling was becoming with friends with Jeff. His nickname was Banjo and some girls thought he looked like Scott Baio. I spent a fair amount of time drinking with him and some other friendly guys in Banjo's room. Banjo liked to save the cap off every beer bottle he opened to keep track of how many he drank. One evening a couple of girls were in the room and one was trying to convince the other one to have a beer.
"Come on! Beer doesn't have any calories!" she insisted.
I would spend some time with Banjo even after leaving the wrestling team. One night I asked to speak with him in the bathroom before leaving a party.
"You need a condom?" he asked. I laughed and said I did. I guess he'd noticed things developing between me and a co-ed at the party and knew what I needed.
Banjo would go on to become a very successful high school wrestling coach.
The cafeteria didn't serve an evening meal on Sunday. So, I usually ended up walking to Hardees with some of the guys on the floor.
Classes
One of the first things I did was switch my major to "undeclared". I realized majoring in business wasn't for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Yet here I was on this college campus hoping I'd figure it out and that all would turn out okay in the end.
I ended up signing up for Human Expression, Introduction to Sociology, Psychology 101, and Math 107. Most of these classes fulfilled some requirement I would need to graduate from that particular college.
For some classes, my classmates and I were informed that we needed to purchase a "blue book" from the college bookstore to be able to complete the essay questions on our exam. I'd never heard of a so-called blue book.
A blue book is a paper booklet with lined pages that college, graduate, and sometimes high school students use to answer test questions. It has a blue paper cover. Hence, its name. I believe it may have cost ten cents for one at the time.
I thought the blue book was kind of silly. In high school we would have simply used a sheet or two of notebook paper to answer essay questions. Perhaps a blue book is a more secure and standardized way of handling essay questions for exams I suppose.
Human Expression class involved a lot of reading. I wasn't too interested in reading Plato, Sophocles, Goethe, Dante, or Machiavelli though. I guess Homer's Odyssey was reasonably interesting. We discussed the ancient Greeks a lot and I learned about post-and-lintel architecture. We had to memorize some classical music and artworks as well. The Birth of Venus by Botticelli is beautiful. The Cellini Salt Cellar is beautiful and intriguing. And not only did Michaelangelo create his masterpiece sculpture David, but Donatello also created a famous bronze statue entitled David as well. Our professor surprised us one morning by showing us a Bugs Bunny cartoon that featured classical music.
Psychology 101 was interesting, and our professor tried to make it fun by playing rock and pop songs to emphasize his point.
I felt fortunate that I'd taken typing classes in high school. I wasn't a good typist by any means, but I could do better than simply hunt and peck for keys. I knew the so-called home keys. I could type while looking at my text instead of the keys to some extent. I knew about margins, tab settings, and centering titles.
I went off to college with a brand-new typewriter (Sears - The Electronic Scholar) and my folder of typing knowledge, guidance, and tips from typing class. I typed a lot of papers during my college years. If my ink cartridge ran out, I'd sometimes use an old electronic typewriter in the library to get by.
The philosophy professor I had during my sophomore year required us to type one of our papers using a computer. I guess he thought the computer age was upon us so we might as well learn to use one. I knew a few people in college who owned their own Apple Macintosh personal computer though that was rare. Most of us had to wait our turn in the computer lab. Fortunately, I had a buddy who was majoring in computer science so showing me how do a little bit of word processing before hitting PRINT was no big deal.
For my last two years of college, I had access to something called a CD-ROM database in the library. I could use the Social Sciences Index to look for journal articles that might help me when writing a paper. No more having to look for articles in big heavy books.
Another new item during my college years was a highlighter marker used to highlight important sections of text in textbooks in, say, a fluorescent yellow.
In 1978, a company in California named Avery Dennison bought the rights to the HI-LITER. This company was the first to use the fluorescent colors that we’ve come to associate with highlighters today.
The problem with a highlighter was that I sometimes found myself highlighting damn near everything I read.
Halfway Through
After Christmas break, I came back for a semester of new classes. I was enrolled in Person and Society, English Composition, Introduction to Literature, and a leisure services class. I also had to take a physical education/health class that was only worth a half credit. I wasn't too happy about the time involved for only a half credit, but it was required so I decided to just get it over with.
We were required to write daily in a journal for English Composition which for me was fairly easy. The professor advised us to attend the college Artist Series seeing as we were paying an "activity fee" anyway. So, I attended a string quartet performance and A Chorus Line. I wrote about the performances in my journal. My English professor liked my writing and suggested I might want to consider looking into a field called technical writing. I had to do more writing for Intro to Lit as well.
Leisure services wasn't for me. In fact, I tried to drop the class, but the professor talked me into sticking with it. I learned a lot and I even taught some dance steps for an activity. A fellow student taught us some rudimentary breakdancing skills. I didn't know it at the time, but he would eventually become my closest college friend.
I got through the physical education class just fine.
Person and Society was probably the most interesting class. My roommate Mark gave me his P & S reader in trade for my Human Ex texts. We discussed a number of subjects in class like authoritarianism, gender roles, poverty, and world hunger.
We had an article in our reader about androgyny which was a new concept to me.
From the article:
"In American society, men are supposed to be masculine, women are supposed to be feminine, and neither sex is supposed to be much like the other. If men are independent, tough and assertive, women should be dependent, sweet and retiring. A womanly woman may be tender and nurturant, but no manly man may be so.
For years we have taken these polar opposites as evidence of psychological health. Even our psychological tests of masculinity and femininity reflect this bias: a person scores as either masculine or feminine, but the tests do not allow a person to say that he or she is both.
Androgyny, in contrast, allows an individual to be both independent and tender, assertive and yielding, masculine and feminine. Thus, androgyny greatly expands the range of behavior open to everyone, permitting people to cope more effectively with diverse situations. As such, I hope that androgyny will someday come to define a new and more human standard of psychological health."
Food
To help pay my tuition costs, I participated in something called work study. For some reason, fate would find me working for the college food service, specifically in the cafeteria. Not every food service employee worked in the cafeteria. Some only worked special events. And others worked in the small restaurant on campus called the Den.
I tried some new foods I'd never had before like turkey cheese croissants, cheddarwurst, chimichangas, chicken Kiev, and manicotti. I was afraid to try a gyro because I didn't know how to pronounce it, know what it was, or know how to eat it. A gyro is meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, then sliced and served wrapped or stuffed in pita bread, along with other ingredients. I believe it might be pronounced yee-roh. Sometimes my buddy Mark would nuke a "za" (microwave a small frozen pizza). Eventually the cafeteria would add a deli, grill, omelet bar, and waffle machines. They would also cater in pizza and sub sandwiches from restaurants occasionally.
I had received as a gift a small appliance called a Hot Pot prior to going off to college. I had visions of myself making hot chocolate, soup, mac 'n' cheese, and ramen. Then I carefully read the directions which read:
The plastic hot pot with automatic temperature control is designed for heating water only. Do not use it to cook or heat foods as it does not get hot enough.
Thus, I don't think I ever used it once. Yes, I realize I could have bought a big heat-resistant bowl of some sort and probably still made ramen and soup. Cleary I could have still made hot chocolate or tea. But, at the time I felt I had been misled and figured I could just as easily use the microwave in the lounge in the basement for my heating needs.
I believe some hot pots could be used for heating milk, soup, and liquid-based foods. I once saw a friend's hot pot encrusted with the remnants of mac 'n' cheese one day - the vestiges of some late-night carbohydrate binge. Either he'd neglected to read the instructions on his hot pot or just didn't care.
One day when Mark and I were shopping for groceries at the supermarket, he was searching for picante sauce. Salsa hadn't become the number one condiment in America yet. I don't think we'd even heard of salsa yet. However, since 1992, salsa has consistently outsold ketchup every year in the United States.
I guess picante sauce is technically a thin salsa. I just wasn't familiar with it because my family had never eaten that product. At any rate, Mark found a supermarket employee who directed him to the picante sauce.
I think the first time I had chips and salsa may have been at a Chi Chi's restaurant in 1988 or 1989 while visiting my older sister. At Chi Chi's, diners could have all the chips and salsa they desired. Chi Chi's even sold their salsa in supermarkets. Technically, Hormel Foods acquired the rights to produce and market Chi-Chi's branded salsa and related products in the United States.
Microwaveable popcorn was another new snack around the same time salsa was gaining popularity. In 1984, Act II, a shelf-stable microwave popcorn was released, becoming the first mass-marketed microwave popcorn.
Wine coolers exploded on the market in the early 1980s with California Cooler debuting in 1981. Wine coolers combined white wine and fruit juice to create a light and refreshing drink. The popular Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler line premiered in 1985. And Seagram introduced Seagram's Golden Wine Cooler in 1986 being pitched in TV commercials by popular actor Bruce Willis.
My roommate Mark asked me and another friend to accompany him on a trip to Iowa State University during the first semester to visit some high school friends. We brought along a two-liter bottle of Sun Country Wine Cooler as a refreshment. Mark almost tricked his mother into buying a two-liter bottle of wine cooler at the supermarket until she realized it contained alcohol.
Fun Time
I went to Joe's some Wednesday nights. That was the night to party in our college town. It was kind of a midweek break from things, I guess. Movies were often shown in Neumann Auditorium on campus on Friday evenings and only cost $1.00. They usually showed a cartoon before the film. Renting VHS tapes was becoming quite popular when I entered college and a number of places rented them. One evening my floor went to a minor league hockey game. Sometimes dances were held in Buhr Lounge and cost very little to attend.
The Oprah Winfrey Show premiered that fall as did the sitcom ALF.
I watched four sitcoms with my roommate one evening on the TV we had in our room and felt guilty for not studying. He assured me it was good to take time off to relax once in a while.
Sometimes I liked to go to the college library to simply read periodicals in the loft area where the newer magazines were kept. I could read magazines I wasn't used to reading like Esquire or The New Yorker. And, where else could I read Amateur Wrestling News or the National Strength and Conditioning Association Journal.
Valentine's Day brought flowers for me. The card was simply signed by a secret admirer.
May Term
May Term involved taking only one class that met every day. May Term was no joke as I had been led to believe. I took a class called Techniques of Teaching Sports Skills and May Term wasn't much fun at all.
My floor had a party in a nearby park toward the end of the year. One of the upperclassmen thought the freshmen should still have some kind of initiation involving drinking. My roommate Mark told him we were almost sophomores now so he could forget it! At the park, some of the guys drank beer. Some of us drank alcoholic punch. One of the upperclassman's parents owned a restaurant so he had access to a commercial beverage dispensing machine which he was serving the punch from.
Although I was rather drunk at the party, some girls showed up and I think I discovered who'd sent me the flowers for Valentine's Day.
The next morning, I was a bit sick and a bit sticky from the punch.
Finished and Going Home
C'est La Vie by Robbie Nevil was high on the pop charts in 1986 and was still on the charts for a bit in 1987.
Some lyrics:
C'est la vie, c'est la vie
That's just the way it goes (that's life)
Oh yeah
C'est la vie, c'est la vie
That's just the way it goes (that's life)
This phrase borrowed from the French and used as an idiom by English speakers means literally "that's life." It's used to indicate resigned acceptance of something that one dislikes but cannot change.
I was stressed out at college and didn't have a clue what to do with my life but tried to accept the situation and relax. I didn't like it but "that's life."
I didn't mention earlier that in English Composition class we had paired up with other students and interviewed each other. I mentioned to the young woman interviewing me that wished I was through with college. She thought that was odd coming from a freshman. I told her I didn't want to deal with the stress.
I guess she saw college as an adventure, a journey. Students would learn new things, meet new people, experience amazing things, prepare for their purpose in life, and perhaps even find love.
Well, I did eventually have a lot of that occur. I did meet amazing people including students and professors. I had some interesting summer jobs. I have a lot of knowledge about vast subjects. I found out I could be an A student. Yes, I even found love.
Nevertheless, when my freshman year of college was over, I wasn't elated. I was simply relieved.
The Secret of My Success starring Michael J. Fox came out in April 1987.
Brantley Foster (Fox) is a recent graduate of Kansas State University who moves to New York City, where he has accepted an entry-level job as a financier. Upon arriving, he discovers that the company for which he is supposed to work has been taken over by a rival corporation. As a result, Brantley is laid off before even starting work.
Can Brantley still find success? Can he conquer New York City? Can he find love as well? Of course!
But here I was just finishing up my freshman year and wondering if I could carry on.
The Berlin Wall Speech was delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987. The speech is commonly known by a key line from the middle part: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961.
Yes, the wall would come down a couple years later while I was still attending college.
I checked my mailbox one last time before leaving college and heading home for the summer. Angie, the cute blond who'd helped me out during freshman initiation had left me a letter. I think she just wrote that it had been great getting to know me that year and that she hoped I would have a great summer.
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