Appalachian State University - Rhododendron Yearbook (Boone, NC)

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12 Experience

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think one of the greatest things in the world to do at ASU is to sit around with a bunch of good friends and chew the fat. I believe there are ten thousand more valuable lessons to be learned from people and their experiences than could ever be sucked out of a college textbook. The greatest times I ' ve ever had here is sittin ' around the room with a bunch of friends and talking about what we ' ve done or what we ' re going to do. You never say anything really specific or do anything worth writing a book about. You just plain make a few memories that will keep you company in the years to come when the ol ' lights aren ' t shining as bright. And I ' ve never experienced anything that could compare with the times I ' ve sat down with various professors, gotten a little mellow, realized that professors are not robots made from specific and precise molds to reel out fact after fact, but they are living, breathing, and feeling human beings. I think in all the classroom games we have to play you kind of forget about those things. All in all, people here are so ... well . . . varied I guess. All types are here, anywhere from aristocrats to rednecks. It ' s wild getting to know them and learning to be with them, to become friends. People are a trip. Experience 11

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— B = „•-. . ' 1 M I , That preacher that came up here had a lot of guts. He had something he felt needed saying and was brave enough to stand up and say it. I didn ' t agree with a lot of the things he said and especially the way he said some of them, but I can ' t help feeling respect and admiration for the man for being able to say what he felt needed saying. He could be right, wrong, whatever, but he was fired up about a cause. It ' s like what a buddy and I were talking about a few days ago. Our generation just doesn ' t seem to get fired up about anything anymore, except maybe the prospects for a job and retirement benefits. It ' s like, if you ' ll forgive my play on words, 7 do my thing and you do your thing, I ' m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. I am I and you are you and if by chance you ain ' t into what I ' m doin ' then the hell with you. ' Does it take something like the Vietnam War to make us sit up and care? The world is far from perfect, and there is a lot that needs doing. It takes guts to stand up alone for a purpose you feel is worthwhile, to work together toward a common goal. I hear people bitch all the time about the way things are run around here, the way things should be, what was bad about this, or how they would have done so and so differently, and yet people don ' t even care enough to work— only talk. There should be a law somewhere that one should not be allowed to criticize anything with- out adding something to build up what they just tore down. I know it sounds like I ' m running off at the mouth, but I do care about my gener- ation, and the world. I feel that a ton of good could be done for everyone if everyone just wanted to do the good and just talk about it. Everyone seemed to care in the sixties and early seventies. They seemed to want to work together for what they believed in. Yeah, I know there was a lot of bad in the sixties and early seven- ties. It says in my psych book that in ' 71 heroin was the number one killer of people our age. But there was a lot of good that came out of the sixties. You just can ' t let the good be distorted by the bad. There was a lot of good done and a lot of stimulation that led to good. I believe we left a lot of ideals back there that we desperately need now. Sure people were dropping from the abuse of heroin in ' 71, but now the number one killer of our age group is suicide, and it just doesn ' t seem to me that everything is going just peachy-keen for us. Well, maybe my problem is I was just bom ten years too late, but I can ' t stand the thought of everyone being so concerned about Joe number one without caring for anyone or anything else. And there is so much Joe number one could gain from just plain caring enough to stand up and get involved. Experience 13