Flashback Friday

I have been thinking of college lately.  Might be because my favorite professor recently passed away.  Maybe some because it was an exciting time and mostly because I was back at IWC when I visited last month for the Wombie's retirement party.  He, Holly and I went out to get the ever-popular, absolutely #1 pizza in the world, Jerry's.  We also went to the old Student Union which I now think is called something a bit more magisterial.  Perhaps it is my daydreaming that propels me to somewhere other than where I am;  those college years were transformative and a Hell of a lot of fun.  I guess I shouldn't bitch too much about how my Happiness Quotient has fallen;  it only had one way to go.    

I came across this picture someone took of me strolling in the parking lot behind the Student Union.  Apparently I had parked the car and was coming over to someone.  I don't have any idea who took it or where I was headed, but I'm sure it was well worth it.  I can assure you that Pinto is not mine - I'd rather walk than be seen in that thing.  I have ended up in considerable beaters in my time, but I never once stooped to a Pinto or Vega.  Oh wait, I had an AMC Pacer once.  OK, the Pinto isn't so bad, in retrospect.  

Along with college I have been thinking of life lately, too.  Perhaps I had it too good.  Like Hubbel everything came pretty easy to me.  Studies, finding and keeping a job and just about everything else.  

Until now.  That kid up in the picture even walked with a confidence, a gait that takes command.  Hopefully I will reawaken that part of me and raise my HQ before I simply tire of the weight. 

While we were in Mt. Pleasant we went to the West Side to have a beer.  This was the old hangout.  In fact the Wombie used to get a little beer money by tending bar.  Doris, longtime owner, who has now since passed on to the great kegger in the sky, was about the most unfriendly person ever in the bar business.   I'm glad we helped make her rich. 

She'd need her smelling salts now however since the kids have found someplace else to go for their fun.  But back when we were at Mt. P. this was the place.  Scabby, seedy and perfect for a bunch of grotty college kids this place was home to a varied bunch of kooks, never-do-wells and academics.  Among the academics was the Dean of Hawaii University who used to sidle up to the bar and discuss the 747's landing in his backyard, presumably to ferry him from Hawaii to sit all day in the bar.  There was also the fellow dying of cancer who had to barf up each of his beers in the tough urinal in the back.  And then the fellow who had lost his upper lip somehow but was lucky in that he did;t have to open his mouth to brush his teeth.  Let us not forget the blind man who we used to give quarters to play the juke box.  Not so much cruel as challenging.  

The place is deserted on the afternoon we were there.  They still have the pool tables but the wobbly tables along the wall are gone, now replaced by newer, firmer tables attacked to the wall.  The bar looks the same but the trough urban has given way to individual units.  The floor is different, but overall remains a time machine; step in and it can, with little imagination transport you back to the 

70's.   

Another college pic and this was up in the fraternity house so it would have been my sophomore year.  By now I have chucked Poly Sci as my major and started to take more courses int he philosophy/theology/logic fields and that little come-to-Jesus ride out in the country with Phil is history.  I was about to put it in high gear academically, still hit the West Side with regularity,  and be cool and studly all at the same time.  Those last two are most likely my revisionist history, but hey, its my blog.   Yep, just too damn easy.  College kids, huh?