Southeastern Oklahoma State University - Savage Yearbook (Durant, OK)

Page 30 text:

Friends: The More The Merrier The Southeastern student, like ev- ery other person, must know how to tailor his behavior to fit the situation in which he finds himself. He must know how to be polite to the faculty and administration, “naturally”, vi- vacious at a big party, and charming with the date whom he is meeting for the first time. He must be able to act like a complete madman in a crowd, and he must be able not only to survive solitude, but to become accustomed to it as a regular lifes- tyle. All these effects of making a student wonder what he is really like, but they also make the student appreciate the times when he can get together with a few close friends and revert to his candid personality. But finding friends in a university is somewhat different from finding them in high school. In contrast to the “good old days” when everybody knew everybody and the senior class was its own world, the student dis- covers that he cannot hope to know even a majority of his own graduat- ing class. To overcome this isolation in a crowd, fraternities, sports and all sorts of organizations offer their services — at a price, of course, whether it be money or time. Through these channels and through circumstances and efforts on his own, the student gradually accumulates a group of people who call him “friend.” Some he forgets after graduation; others he remem- bers a few years afterwards; still others he may cherish the rest of his life; all however, make a student’s stay here a lot easier. If a student bombs a tests, it is somehow comforting for him to find out that his best friend bombed it too. A cruel sort of comfort, per- haps, but the miserable really need each other. And those tests one aces, the intramural games one wins and the feeling one has at the end of the quarter aren’t half so good as they are when shared with someone else. Even a cup of coffee or lunch with some acquaintance can greatly im- prove the quality of the day. Indeed, Southeastern would be a cold place if one had to face despair, triumph, and everyday life alone.

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Spring Brings Rain; Summer Brings Sun . . . . ... and then comes fall, and one revels in the dry leafy wind and wonders how any other season could seem beautiful in comparison. Per- haps it is then that a college seems most a college with the growing ex- citement of the upcoming football game, the feeling that a new year means a clean slate, and the knowl- edge that the possibilities between Labor Day and Christmas are un- limited. New freshman carefully decorate their rat hats with Scrip- tos; the frats are out full strength with rush name tags and frosty cold kegs; intramural casualties limp up and down endless stairs; sweaters and hot chocolate are counted among the luxuries of life; evenings assume an unusual quiet quality. Even through all this, however, Southeastern is still Southeastern, and the leaves must wait for the labs. The hysteria of work mounts by the week. Nevertheless, if one takes a moment to look (and these mo- ments are always there), he will find that the sky achieves its deepest blue in autumn, and that the ivy really has overgrown the brick.