Four Dead in Ohio

        After having so many stories about grade school and junior and high school – teachers, classes, classmates, it seems kind of eye-opening now to realize that of the 40 courses I took in college, there are not that many that come to mind of anything I can say in a blog post about them. Maybe more will come to light as I write and recollect.

        Because of the advanced placement classes I took in high school, I was able to skip both freshman English and inorganic chemistry. I only found out just before my senior year in college that this did not mean I could graduate early! I was still required to take 40 classes. When I barked at someone in the registrar’s office about this – why would I take college classes in high school if I could not graduate college early? His response was that I could take some easy classes in their place to bring up my average! I gave him one of my haughty huffs and told him college was way too expensive to waste time taking easy courses!

        Even though I had more than one blog post for each of my English classes through junior and high school, there is not much I can think of to say for the two semesters of English I took freshman year. I did make one post back at the beginning of spring – Chaucer and the birds who lie awake at night hoping for a little romance – yeah.

And it was not the teacher’s fault that I did not get much else out of the class.

        Remembering back on it now – I was this gawky kid feeling super self-conscious but wanting desperately at this new start – freshman year of college – to fit in. I had just gotten glasses – I waited until high school was over to tell my parents that I was having trouble seeing the blackboard. To have gotten glasses while still in high school would have gotten me too much attention because something different was going on – and it would have ruined my cloak of invisibility. So my glasses got no attention in college – but I did not wear them all the time – and as I walked down the hall, already feeling gawky, I would fuss with my glasses, on or off, in my pocket or where? I tried not carrying a purse, which meant that I had to have a pen and bus money somewhere. And I refused to wear a watch – but I often had this gold watch pendant hanging around my neck with any kind of tee shirt I might have been wearing. This picture has not even mentioned the zits on my face or the armload of books. Oh my gosh – could I have been more awkward?

        Well within the first month of school I caught a terrible cold and I did not want to miss class – so I remember sitting in English one day sniffing the whole time. Finally, a girl who I thought had become a new friend got really mad about my sniffing – who wouldn’t?

        The gawkiness did not stop with my outside appearance. Just before my freshman year began, the Attica prison rioting had occurred. Attica is not too far from Buffalo. In my naive, not-ever- up-on-current-events, brain – I did not give much thought to Attica – there might have been legitimate issues by the inmates, but I did not bother to educate myself on what they might be - whatever was going on would soon be squelched by the superior firepower of the authorities.  

        Vietnam was also happening – I was against the war. But there was nothing I was doing about it. Secretly, and I can honestly say, guiltily, I was so glad I was female and would never have to worry about the draft or the armed services. I could continue to be the silly totally immature girl that I was – not having to grow up for a while, not having to deal with real issues of the day.

        So one morning in English class, early in the semester, the teacher said that instead of literature, perhaps we should spend the day talking about Attica and Vietnam – kids started shaking their heads in agreement and saying “Yeah!” like true militants. I remember the expressions and their faces – but I don’t remember what was actually said after that. My brain probably drifted off to the dinner that my grandmother would be making that night, or boys.

        Aside from the birds lying awake with their eyes open all night, and my sniffing and complete and total gawkiness, and the discussion about Attica and Vietnam one day that I did not participate in, that’s all I remember from the two semesters of sophomore English in college. I guess one could say that instead of using my ears as an ideal college student should be doing, I was using my eyes – keeping them wide open in hopes of romance like a silly little bird in the spring of my college life.

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