Back to School

In the fall of 1971 Karina and I both decided to take the SAT test. I'm not sure what her reasoning was, but I was starting to feel like school might be better than doing absolutely nothing :-) ... I think I scored 1180 - a bit above average and not too bad considering how often I skipped class during high school. Of course - Karina scored way higher - no surprise there... And, as it turns out, my 1180 was vastly higher than the minimum required to gain admittance to North Texas State (now UNT). Also no surprise :-)

I called dad before enrolling to remind him that he had promised to cover my books and tuition if I decided to go to college. And (lo and behold) he did send the money (although there was a rather nasty catch that I didn't find out about until later)... And since tuition at state schools in Texas was dirt cheap the whole semester only cost a bit more than a month's rent.

And it came to pass that in January of 1972 I set foot in a college classroom for the first (but not nearly the last) time. Here's my ID picture:


My first class of the day was "Introduction to Business"... Yeah - I dropped it after a week... Borrrring... That's 3 hours of my life I'll never get back :-) And that left me with English Lit, Tennis, French and Speech in that order...

English Lit was cool... The prof was a young, Bohemian woman. Long flowing dresses - waist-length brown hair and a whimsical sense of humor... Yeah - she actually got my jokes - even the really obscure ones... What a rare and insightful person she was :-) ... You know - I would have probably enjoyed hanging out with her but never gave it a passing thought since she was a teacher and all...

Aside - back in the day North Texas was known for 3 things:
First was the music program - very highly regarded... Next was "Mean Joe Green", the legendary defensive tackle of "Steel Curtain" fame... And finally - beauty queens. Miss Tall Texas and and least 3 other notable "title holders" were in attendance that semester.
One thing the college was not known for was academics... Most of my classmates were fresh out of high school and didn't score particularly high on the SATs. I think the entrance requirement was around the 25th percentile - pretty hard not to qualify...

And the main point of all this is that when one of the students in that class said something particularly stupid (which was pretty darn often) the prof would often give me a quick glance - kind of like "I can't believe he or she said that - can you??"... Yeah - she was one of the very few people who "got me" :-)

But my main memory from that class was of the super hot blond girl and the (also blond) guy she was obsessed with. They were both "wannabe" hippies - they dressed the part, spouted all the right cliches but they were basically clueless.

Another aside:
Why is it that so many "non-conformists" are just conformists wearing disguises? I mean - if you can be that easily categorized - goth, punk, skinhead, emo, hippie - it's a bit of a stretch to call yourself a non-conformists, isn't it? ... And why is it that those types often more "intolerant" than the "conventional" people they disdain? ... Ironic... And back to the clueless blond hippie couple:

I'm pretty sure they met for the first time in that English class and it didn't take long before they were "hot and heavy". Then he suddenly became indifferent... She continued to sit next to him in class, making all sorts of suggestive gestures and remarks - practically throwing herself at him (it was almost embarrassing sometimes) - and he mostly ignored her...
I just couldn't figure it out. I watched them closely - looking for subtle clues as to what went wrong, but it remained a mystery... I don't know if she was too clingy or annoying, or if he had simply "gotten what he wanted" and moved on, or what...
Sigh... I would have loved to have that girl pay any attention to me - but she wouldn't even make eye contact. She was obsessed with a clueless twit who didn't want to have anything to do with her... Go figure...

Then this one day I was on the way to school and passed a small grocery market near campus and two policemen had the blond hippie girl out in the parking lot and she was crying and everything. I figured she was probably getting busted for shoplifting, but 15 minutes later there she was in English class - all bubbly and smiling... All I could figure was that she had "cried" her way out of it... Yeah - I was tempted to mention the incident in class (since she didn't like me anyway) but I didn't... Yeah - I may be an @sshole, but I'm not a mean @sshole :-)

And one final story from English Lit:
One day the hippie boy made a statement that was so incredibly dumb I have never forgotten it. During a class discussion he said: "I have not been conditioned by society in any way!"
I started to respond but decided it was pointless... Here's what I was about to say: "So... You don't live in a house or sleep on a bed? Or use a pillow or bedding? Or use a toilet or toilet paper? Or eat from a plate using a fork and knife?? Dude! Almost everything you do is societal conditioning!!!" ... Sigh ... What a freaking moron :-)

And I guess that's enough for now... I'll leave Tennis, French and Speech for future posts.