This Is Not A Dream

Upon returning to my alma mater Grove City College in northwest Pennsylvania for the first time in almost 40 years, I walked around the campus in a dreamlike trance. For many years I dreamed I returned to the college campus, only to wake up and realize I was dreaming. I had this dream so many times, that during the dreams, I started to question whether I was really there or if I was dreaming. Usually I concluded that this time I was actually there, only to eventually wake up and realize it was just another dream. This lucid dreaming continued for years. Today while walking around the campus, fleeting glimpses and snapshots of the numerous dreams over the many years would quickly flicker, appearing and disappearing in my mind.

The walk was also dreamlike because I was the only one on campus. The students had all gone home for summer. Several times I told myself, wake up, you are dreaming. Finally this time after so many dreams over years, I really was awake and was actually walking around the campus.

I walked over to the front of the dorm where the woman I loved so dearly during college lived during her senior year. Vividly I remembered one evening sitting with her on a cold concrete bench in front of the dorm (patio in front of dorm shown in the first photo). We talked about how the campus was so beautiful, but if we came back in 10 years, the campus would be cold, because we would not know anyone here anymore. Well now its been 40 years, and the same is true. The campus is beautiful, but without anyone here I know, the place seems not cold, just peaceful, a place and time from a long long time ago.

I wanted to marry the woman I sat with there 40 years ago. I was so naive, she was a senior, I was a sophomore, and she went off to see the world while I was still there for two more years. She was my first true love. I still am in touch with her today, she is the wisest person I have ever met in my life. I always called her my life mentor. If not for her, I can’t even imagine how my life would have turned out. My life is all the better for having known her.

Most of the buildings on campus were locked up. While peering into the door of a new building, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the door and was shocked to find a face of an old man staring back at me. I thought, wow, what happened to the 20 year old kid who went to school here. The reflection had the appearance of a ghost, of the young man’s 20 year old face aged 40 years into the future.

I walked over to Lincoln Hall, the dorm I lived in during my sophomore and junior years. I looked up to the corner of the third floor and saw my old room. While looking at the windows of that room, I did not see my ghost looking back at me. As I approached the door to the dorm, instinctively I looked up. While I lived there, if you didn’t look up when you opened the door to the dorm, you likely would be drenched by a trash can full of water thrown down on you by a couple of scoundrels from the third floor. The scoundrels were usually liberal arts majors who had enough time to sit around all day waiting to pour water on people. The unspoken rule of having water dumped on you was that if you looked up and caught them, then it was bad form for them to still drop the water. When the unbroken rule was broken, it usually led to a fight. For nearly two years after leaving school, whenever I went into a building with more than one floor, I instinctively looked up. I have not looked up in years for water bombing, but as I approached Lincoln Hall, I looked up even though I knew no one else was on campus. There must have been some visual clues around the door way that triggered some almost long forgotten neural pathways in my brain.

I remembered sitting in Lincoln Hall on a cloudy rainy Wednesday afternoon, looking out across the quad towards the library and wondering. What would life be like in ten years on a Wednesday afternoon? Where would I be working, where I would be living, who would be my friends, who would I marry, how many children would I have, what would life be like? That was a time when life was all hopes and dreams. Life does not turn out the way you plan it. Now most of those hopes and dreams have either been fulfilled or vanquished. Now mostly I just feel fortunate that 40 years later, I am still alive, in good health, and able to actually make the trip back here.

Looking at all the dorm rooms, I tried to imagine the thousands of students that lived in those rooms and passed through this way. I can’t even begin to comprehend the multitude of souls that were here for just a few years of their lives, but were now scattered across the country.

I remembered in the winter of 1977, one of the worst winters in 20 years, schools were closed because of a fuel crisis. The temperatures were so cold that the utilities were running out of fuel, and most places were closed for a week to conserve energy for hospitals etc. One evening on a dare I streaked up to the library in 5 degree weather 100 yards each way for $17. Streaking was big back in the 1970s, but not in 5 degree weather. Snow was piled 12 feet high on both sides of the road and the road was covered with snow. The people who each contributed a dollar each to watch this lunatic probably thought the jaunt would take me at least five minutes since the snowy terrain was so slippery. What they didn’t know was that I had an old pair of cross country shoes with four two inch metal spikes on the soles which gave me incredible traction. I quickly sprinted the hundred yards up and the hundred yards back along with doing the required 5 jumping jacks (the jumping jacks added to the bet by some sadist) on the library steps in less than 60 seconds. I weighed only 135 lbs then and after 4 years of running track and cross country in high school I still was as quick as a deer. I thought I had outsmarted them all, but then someone became mad at being outsmarted (I use outsmarted loosely, after all, I was the one in 5 degree weather wearing only a ski mask, gloves, socks and track spikes) pushed me into a pile of snow were I did a full body face down plant into the snow just before entering the door to the dorm. Oh, in case you are wondering, I got the $17 before the sprint. I also have the picture to prove it, but I won’t post that here, even with the blue dot. Due to the extreme cold, the blue dot didn’t need to be very big.

The water tower that we used to climb up is gone, probably a good thing since the tower was over 80 feet tall. The view from the water tower was extraordinary, since the water tower was the highest point between Grove City College and Pittsburgh 60 miles away. Amazingly, no one ever fell off that tower and got killed, I know I nearly did once. We probably climbed that water tower over 50 times before we were finally caught and arrested. I will always remember the night we were caught and the bright search light beam that scanned the water tower trying to find us as we scurried around the cylindrical tank trying to evade the search beam. I felt like I was on Hogans Heroes. The police kept asking us where our paint was, they thought we were up there trying to deface the water tank. They couldn’t comprehend that we climbed the water tower simply because the tower was there. The old clock tower that we used to sneak into and climb up is still there and is visible in the photo of the main quad. We used to yell down at people from the clock tower, and it was hilarious to watch them look around to see where the yelling was coming from. People rarely look up.

There were quite a few other shenanigans that went on during the four years there, but those are probably best left untold. College was a wonderful time with many memories of many good friends.

The Recreation Building was the only building on the campus open. As I walked near the entrance, I remember a time walking into that building in the winter of 1977 when there was a blizzard with such strong winds that a complete whiteout occurred. Just seeing the person in front of you was difficult. During times like this, the students would just scurry between buildings for safety and warmth. Like many colleges, this building had a Hall of Fame Row, display cases filled with trophies and photos of athletes and teams going back over 100 years. The display cases reminded me of the movie “Dead Poets Society” with Robin Williams.

From the Dead Poet’s Society –

While looking at athletes from many years ago, Robin Williams tells the boys.

“Because we’re food for worms, lads! Because we’re only going to experience a limited number of springs, summers, and falls. One day, hard as it is to believe, each and every one of us is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die. I would like you to step forward over here and peruse the faces of the boys who attended this school sixty or seventy years ago. You’ve walked past them many times, but, I don’t think you really looked at them. “They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – – Carpe – – hear it? – – Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.You hear it? Carpe…Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”

Link to Robin WIlliams Carpe Diem, perhaps his best scene ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EjOCyyCWg

Well, I don’t know if I followed Robin Williams advice or not. I like to think I tried. Three weeks after graduating from Grove City College in May of 1979, I moved to Florida. I thought I would only be in Florida for 6 months before moving on, but I was still there three years later. By that time, had a house, a girlfriend, and a cat, and when Sperry Rand wanted me to move on as per the original plan, I found a new job and stayed, changed jobs two more times until I ended up at E-systems were I worked for 26 years until I retired in 2013, I was very fortunate.

My career is now over, actually, I retired over two years ago. I’ve now returned to the place that prepared me for my career. I find it hard to fathom that college is over, the career is over, and now I am just driving around in a tin can. I have come full circle.

Retirement is an interesting phase of life. Actually, I don’t even like the word retirement, as the word in Latin means “to withdraw.” Retirement seems easy, but it’s not really that simple. Thinking retirement is as easy as simply buying an RV, turning the key in the ignition, and riding off into the sunset is not true. At least for me, that is not the case. And I can tell you that a RV is actually quite a bit of work, after all, you are driving a small house around the country.

I discovered that this phase of life is not all that different than the other phases of life. Humans still want the same things. They need to feel like they are making a difference in people’s lives and the world. People need to feel appreciated, needed, valued, and that they have a purpose in life. The whole point is that this stage of life is not just a decision, but a process that you work through. The difference is that during this phase, there is not really time for a do over. Having some kind of plan or idea for what you want to do is important. I saw a sign once that said, “Life is two periods of play, interrupted by 40 years of work.”

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t think the answers are in a book, and there is no Wizard in Oz to go ask. We simply need to figure it out for ourselves. Or as Charles Kuralt said on his On the Road Show, “I keep thinking I will find something wonderful just around the bend.”

This concludes the nostalgia portion of the tour.

Link to Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp

Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp