Another big jump in the lives of the Pyle family of western
Kansas is happening soon. In a bit more
than a week Kid #1 will be joined for the first time by Kid #2 attending
classes at the University of Kansas. There
are a lot of different things going through my mind as I see them pack all
their stuff in preparation for college life.
Since my chief goal with this column is humor I will not describe many
of the things going through my head because I am a great big sap and having my
girls leave home brings out epic levels of sap.
I’m talking Vermont in syrup season levels of sap.
Therefore, in order to avoid tear stains on my keyboard, we
are going to push Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman to the side, climb into the
Wayback Machine and visit young Christopher as he wandered the streets of
Lawrence and the hallways of higher learning at KU back in the mists of
antiquity known to historians and scholars as “The Early 80’s”.
I was not a highly motivated college student (and for you
kids heading off to college that was a big mistake, more on that later). My older brother actually filled out my college
application forms because he was determined to broaden my horizons whether I
wanted to enlarge them or not. He also
went with me to Lawrence to enroll in classes and select an apartment. Then he left and I had to actually do
everything else myself, the heartless twerp.
I lived in what we lovingly referred to as the student slums
my entire college career. This was great
for the clinical introvert Chris, because he does do better when he can
recharge in solitude but is was not good for the pathological introvert Chris
who would go several days in a row without talking to another human being
entirely too often.
My first apartment was actually a single room roughly the
size of your average maximum security solitary confinement accommodation with
access to a bathroom and a kitchen down the hall. Since I sprung the extra ten bucks for the
mini-fridge (in order to avoid the awkward forty to fifty seconds of bumping
into somebody else from the building as I shuffled to the kitchen for my
nightly can of Pepsi) the rent was a whopping $100 a month. Let me tell you the price matched the level of
luxury it implies.
My second year at college was the anomaly. I shared two floors of an old house with my
brother and my best friend. That year I
was borderline social. I had a part time
job which required me talking to people, even pretty girls. We even hosted parties. The rest of my college career I lived alone
in basement apartments, one of which was at the bottom of a dead street. The symbolism was not even lost on me at the
time.
My girls have a lot more to take with them. Some of it is because they are girls. Some of it is because they are young at a
time in the history of the world when there a lot more gadgets. Some of it is because they wish to live like
fully evolved humans. When I moved to KU
I had a reasonable amount of clothes, a portable black and white television, a
cassette tape player, two each of spoons, forks, knives, plates and cups
(eventually I had many more cups - about a gross of convenience store plastic
cups) and some basic school supplies, not including a calculator because I
hoped to be finished with math.
This brings us back to the lack of motivation issue. I didn’t really know what my passion was so
when I went to college I mostly just fell into a course of study. I majored in Film Studies which at KU during
this time was just a bunch of classes on film history and aesthetics, no film
making at all. This prepared me for a
cracking good career in video rental stores, and we all know how well that
industry thrives to this day.
Actually, I get annoyed when people look at college as
nothing more than a conduit to the workforce.
My lack of passion was the reason for the lack of career, not a poor
choice of major. If I had been fully
engaged I would have gone to USC and made movies. Now I want to go back to college and become a
real writer. Timing is everything in
life.
Christopher Pyle will
pretend the girls are just in the basement a lot the next few months. You can contact him at
occasionallykeen@yahoo.com
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