Western Michigan University - Brown and Gold Yearbook (Kalamazoo, MI)

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- mimmmm 1

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I waited. God, I waited. I sweated and worked and drove myself until finally I ' ve got that diploma in my hand— I ' m a civilian again! Sure, you ' re out now, but what have you got to show for it really? A diploma? A few grades on an audit— What else? I ' m graduated. I join the ranks of the educated, hope enlightened hope of America. I mean besides what they told you in the welcoming speech when you came here. What do you have? What will you remember? People, mostly. People in classes, walking in the Union, on the sidewalks and dodging Bronco Transit buses. The beautiful people I met at all those parties, swilling their drinks and smoking while laughing at and with each other— being gross, but enjoying themselves. And classes. How I ' d like to have strangled that fossil who taught General Studies and bored us to tears with his tales of ' when I was an undergraduate . . . ' and his dirt about the men they named the dorms after. OK, so you didn ' t like some of your classes. What else? Well, there ' ll always be a memory of all those wasted hours I had to take to graduate— irrevalent eyewash- while Columbia and San Francisco rioted and Chicago became a battleground. Through it all, there I was, watching TV lectures on absurdities, moving my lips to class discussions. Your favorite class? Was living at Western. Seeing new directions by realizing other people have something to offer— that my old self-assurance was a lie— that bigotry and indifference were suicide. You sound like a soc lecture. What about all those hours you earned? Those were what the university wanted, but in spite of them, I managed to find a little of what I wanted.