People will say that college is a time of exploration, and it is just that in many ways. Consider that when you arrive at college, especially a big school, you will immediately meet people from all races, all cultures, all nationalities, and all ages. It’s fun, exciting, scary, and very mind-expanding.
Most people will think and experience things in college that they have never considered before. Knowing this, I tried to prepare my boys as they were growing up by exposing them to concepts and people outside of their “norm” while they were still at home with us, hoping that they would not be in culture shock once they got to college.
I was very thankful, as I have said before, that they had an “instant family” of football players and coaches from the day they arrived. Also, to be a college athlete means, your time is not your own. You have early morning workouts, classes, practice, and study hall for underclassmen, and by the end of the day, you are ready for bed…only to start all over again the next day.
Now, kids being kids, they will find time to party, have fun, and explore the world around them but being an athlete, at least, puts some restraints on activities.
Even with all I did to prepare them, they both told me that they were exposed to ideas, concepts, practices, cultures, and beliefs they never could have imagined. That is a big part of the college experience, and it is wonderful. At the end of the day, you get to decide as an adult how you are going to mold your life from then on.
The same had been true for me many years earlier when I was in college. It is absolutely crazier today than it was back then, but life in general is crazier today. We didn’t have instant access to news, ideas, and anything we wanted to consider like kids do today. But having said that, the late 60s and early 70s were still a mind-bending experience.
The six of us men who lived in the house I’ve talked about were a bit sheltered because of our focus on finishing school and at the same time learning as much about the bible as we could, but that didn’t stop us from trying new things.
One of those things was a health pursuit that someone had suggested. It involved drinking the most awful concoction of water and powder that turned to slime when mixed together. It was a detox liquid to pull things out of your body AND we did this every hour for 7, yes 7 days. This “cleanse” was supposed to make you much healthier by the end, and I’m sure it did.
The result of no food for a week and constant trips to the bathroom as the slime cleaned our colons was that we lost an average of 15+ pounds in that week. This drastic loss of weight was attributed to “cleaning out our impacted colons”. Personally, I think it was the starvation diet we were on, but we survived.
We athletes can be a little dramatic at times, but hey, we are who we are. To drink the hideous mixture, one of the guys, a football teammate, would go to the kitchen, stand in front of the kitchen sink, take off his shirt, pour the water, powder, and detox liquid into a plastic tumbler and then shake it vigorously.
As he was shaking, he would start screaming…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then he would rip off the top, lean over the sink, and start chugging the slime. It would be dripping out of the side of his mouth and onto his chest (that’s why the shirt came off). When he finished, he would drop the plastic tumbler into the sink and just stand there panting for a few minutes, wipe his face off, and wait an hour to do it all over again. This went on, as I said, for 7 days!!!
It is amazing how keen your senses become when you don’t eat for a week…you could smell someone cooking breakfast two blocks away. Well at this time in the year, it was our habit in the house on Thursday nights to watch the “new” Rod Sterling show called “Night Gallery”. It was sort of like his earlier show, the “Twilight Zone” if you remember that show.
We were all in one room watching the show and one of the guys left for a minute and then came back into the room. He made the mistake of asking what happened when he was gone. As soon as he opened his mouth, the room filled with the smell of “Peanut Butter”.
He had gone to the kitchen and in his state of “hunger”, like all of us, had taken a spoon and eaten some peanut butter. We all immediately jumped him, pounding with pillows and maybe some fists, I can’t remember, because we had all agreed not to eat that week…just another day of exploration in the life of a college student.
If you are a parent reading this, just know that if your child goes off to school, they will probably not tell you a tenth of what happens there, but it will be okay, I am sure they will figure it out like mine did.
Well, that’s enough for now, more adventures tomorrow.
Yes, Duke, YES! That time in college opened my eye to different people, cultures, and where I truly wanted to go. Thank you, sir, for sharing yours. After my very good upbringing, it was amazing what was to be learned after leaving home and high school. Thank you, sir, for sharing yours. Yes, sometimes it felt like the Twilight Zone. And sometimes it felt like the Red Skelton Show in all its craziness.