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Page 32 text:
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gglllllligg First Year Experiences
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Page 33 text:
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It was the worst car trip I had ever experienced. I was sitting in the back seat, stuffing one piece of gum after another into my bone-dry mouth, mutely gumming it into a tasteless wad. Not that I felt like chewing gum by any means-most every- thing I had eaten that day had tasted like gum to begin with. But I seemed to be deriving some sort of thera- peutic comfort from unwrapping the pieces one by one, rolling each piece into the tightest coil possible, then popping it in my mouth. After carefully dissecting the outermost wrapping into its three component layers, I realized I had exhausted my last hope of regaining any sense of normalcy. We're almost there, honey! Dad said grinning in the rear-view mirror. I grinned back, but not out of agreement. tThere was a muscle spasm in my faceJ What now? I considered con- tinuing my search for bald-headed men driving green 1966 Chevro- lets, but that had become totally frustrating 50 miles ago. I had reached the point where I felt like if I saw one perhaps it would mean I could go back home and we could forget all this nonsense. But the Chevy eluded me-I was going off to col- lege and that was that. The music on the radio now seemed little more than a static buzz as we pulled farther away from my home- town. The numbered miles on the highway signs were decreasing- grains of sand in the hourglass. Mother was asking me if I had remembered my toothbrush. I stared mutely out the window. Some questions aren't even worth an- swering. That afternoon seems like it hap- pened a million years ago. So many changes have taken place since then, I can't count them all. My body has made all the necessary adaptations-I can now function beautifully on No-Doze, Diet Rites, and Rock-n-Roll. I can now keep my brain in a state of OVERDRIVE for hours at a time. I've become adept at sleeping whenever pos- sible-it's gotten to the point where I can snooze quite soundly sitting upright in a desk, a rapt expression on my face. I can shower using two and a half cups of water and get clean besides. I've forgotten some things, too -namely, How To Be Bored. Per- haps it's because I don't get all that much practice. It's true-the life here is as fast and intricate as the famed Wahoo dances. The music is perpetual; you can still hear its strains in the deepest sleep. It's quite a catchy tune-the kind that makes for good memories later on. But for now, it's a racing, build- ing crescendo, daring you to keep pace with it. You must keep track of your hands and feet, and the movements of everyone else in the dance hall. To even think of what happens after the dance is beyond you-it's the first, last, and only situation at hand. Four years from now may as well be never. Go on, dear! Go and meet some of your new friends! my parents smiled lovingly. Like hell. Tell Daniel to walk into the lion's den. The hill and parking lot next to 0. Hill was teeming with young peo- ple wading through each other, carry- ing plates and soda cans. Then they'd go and sit down, INever closer than three feet to anyonel and smile hys- terically at everyone who passed by. A bluegrass band was playing up a storm; the rapid staccato of their banjo strings was turning us all into nervous wrecks. But we all smiled and looked as perky and well-scrubbed as possible, in spite of the 90-degree heat. I finally resigned myself to go get a Coke at least, and say hello. As I walked down the path, my parents jogged along taking pic- tures. I felt like Jackie Onassis. lOr maybe Patty HearstJ I got my Coke and took my place on the hill; carefully spacing my- self among the others. Looking a- round, I saw what seemed to be an endless sea of faces, all looking at one another and preening nervously. Hmmmm . . . there were probably some good looking young men here, but no one looks that good when they're terrified. I almost giggled; we all looked as starched as our clothes. The guys were walk- ing around in their still-stiff Levi's; shirts just out of the plastic bags. Girls sat alone or in twos, their hair immaculate and conditioned to the healthiest bounce obtain- able. I felt sick. Even my hair was shell-shocked. My parents were on the hill above me, laughing, chatting amiably with some other adults. Jeeze, they were doing better than I was . . . I must have looked pretty funny then-but not as funny as I looked last night, that's for sure. I finally got in at one-thirty, completely covered with shaving cream. My hair was smeared with it,- my entire person reeked of Gilette Lime. My friends staggered upstairs from the mudslide; we all howled at each other for a while and then bunched into the bathroom to clean up. Oh, JEEZ-IS! Man, it's going to take me for- ever to get these clothes clean! Hey-can I borrow that green skirt of your tomorrow? I've got a date. Sureewho's the lucky guy? Bet I know! Bull! He's not even first-year! WHOAII Well ex-CUSE-ME! And so on. It seems that somehow we've gotten to know each other pretty well, too. We've become ac- customed to our faces. The starch is well washed out of our clothes, and our Levis are beginning to con- form a bit better to our shapes. The daily rush to the mailbox continues, but not with the desperation so typical of that first week. We help each other through midterms and first hangovers, through love af- fairs, and laundry. Which leaves us an awful lot to enjoy. I don't think much about that first week anymore. I'm too con- cerned with other things, the elu- sive 4.0 and the equally elusive perfect romance. But thanks to memory and my father's everpres- ent Pentax, I guess it will remain with my other good memories for a long time.
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