Tusculum College - Tusculana Yearbook (Greenville, TN)

Page 114 text:

The End An old neighborhood ritual of the editor's, upon the reaching of the end of anything, consists of a silly exer- cise in which two comrades in the terminating en- deavor look each other in the eye and gravely an- nounce, in unison, This is it. Unfortunately, the media of print and photo have certain limitations. Nonetheless ...... this is it. Tusculum has been enjoyable, to say the least. It's also been reasonably educational. For those of us who managed, somehow, to live through three years of turmoil and an additional year of limbo, the editor wishes to express to you a very special 'this is it.' ak Ik lk Ik Ill wk wk wk wk III Ik at Ik lk HI' Upon graduating, I had thought that it might be appropriate to say something significant to my parents and the rest of my family, but, as things would have it, my mother wished to discuss things such as my personal appearance and my employment status Uvlothers are like that, yeah . . .they arei. But I knew what I would have said then, and I know what I will say now, and the two are much the same thing. I've wanted to include in my thoughts here in the annual as a matter of preservation. Enough of the people at Tusculum have felt the way I have, and our thoughts would be a good thing to have down, in writing, so that when the Tusculum people of 'I972-73 have children of college age they'll have some sort of a reference point concerning their state of mind back when they were spring chickens: I had thought, the imaginary speech was to have read, that upon graduating, upon receiving my de- gree, I was to be filled with a profound revelation about life, about the future. Instead, I found myself feeling about the same as I had before - dazed and confused, like a fourteen year-old confronting his first blemish. The diploma didn't carry any special message other than, 'This paper certifies that the bearer has completed four years of study successfully enough to be called a college graduate' So, family, I did what I have been doing for quite some time now - I reacted like a crazy college kid, posing for pictures with my best college friends, the three of us holding our diplomas before us in a pose reminiscent of Kellogg's Corn Flakes ads in the Saturday Evening Post. Now, perhaps this activity of mine bothered you... in fact, it even bothered me for a while. But later in the afternoon, while conversing with one of my favo- rite backporch philosophers, I suddenly came upon the truth about my diploma, and the truth of my edu- cation as whole. Granted, Tusculum had taught me the finer points of understanding William Faulkner, Tus- culum had taught me the reasons why clay attains cer- tain properties after being fired to certain tempera- tures, Tusculum had even taught me about the world of small-time politics. 110