Freshman Reality...or, A Damn Joy!

             It was an embarrassing feeling. But I didn't dare ask for anyone's help. It's bad enough knowing that you're a freshman (better known at the University of Florida as 1UF), but admitting that you really do stick out like a snowstorm in Miami is downright shameful. So instead of admitting defeat I silently peddled my 10-speed down the winding sidewalks in search of some mystical sign that would lead me to the seemingly missing building.

It appeared that I was lost in a sea of graduate schools, and it was evident that I did not belong in the multitude of higher learners. Realizing class would start soon I began to feel uneasy. As people passed by me I held back from asking them the simple question, "Where am I?".

I soon found myself alone on a sidewalk, except for an elderly gentle­man who was walking towards me. I would stop and ask him. He was apparently a professor of some sort, and I logically reasoned that he would be thinking about something (something only elderly professors could think of) and could care less if I was 1UF, 2UF, or a psychotic killer (unless of course he was a psychology professor). So without hesitation--only with the fear that some snickering 2UF would spot me (sophomores are always smug and jeering because after two years they think they've finally learned the system)--I slowed my bike and profoundly stated, "Excuse me”. The slender man looked up from his thinking, surprised that someone or something had disturbed his train of thought.

"Yes?” he squirted.

 I could feel my throat babble, "could you direct... err... tell me where Matherly Hall is...?"

"That's it right over there," he pointed.

"Thank you," and I sped off toward the undoubtedly old building which I had past several times in my search. As I locked my bike near the aged building I began to feel at ease.

It wasn't until some confusion arose in my mind over the location of my classroom in the newly discovered Matherly Hall that I began to feel a touch of nervousness. There is nothing like being lost in a university of approximately 33,000 students while simultaneously being 600 miles away from the people you love the most. The anxiety, the emotional turmoil, physical and mental stress, and even trivial matters which somehow can cause great embarrassment, all seem to heighten when you're lost. I suppose this bombardment must be from realizing that you're alone, even to the point of loneliness. Yet you are surrounded by the largest number of peers you'll ever be with at the same time or place.

The University of Florida campus, circa 1982. 

My nervousness was not now attributed to the fear of being known as the lost 1UF, but that I would walk into my English class late and miss some trite, yet necessary information. More importantly, I was afraid of being embarrassed. The silent stares coming from my classmates could be worse than isolation.

It was then that I spotted an apparently lost and seemingly distraught individual. I immediately knew that she, like myself, was a lost freshman. Knowing that being lost with someone else is much more comfortable than by oneself I marched diligently towards the young lady. Soon, I thought, I will not be alone, and I confidently continued forward, though

Me, circa 1982-83.

I had no idea what I would say. I only thought to myself. Why should I be embarrassed about being a 1UF? I should use it to my advantage. After all, practically everyone at the university is, or has been, a college freshman.

Before I could say anything the girl looked up and asked with frustrated exhaustion for the directions to room number three. Though I, naturally, couldn't give them to her I suggested that we look for the room together. She agreed, after all (I thought) would Cyclops peripheral vision be better than the gleaming eyes of an NFL quarterback?

We quickly found the room, which appeared dull and muggy from age, and silently entered. We could be comfortable now because no matter what we were (1UF, 2UF,etc.) we all had something in common; the fact that we chose or were assigned this section of English 1101. The concession was little, yet it was there. There was no longer any need to feel embarrassed or nervous. Seconds after we had entered our instructor clambered in. His statements were, at times profound, some were even frightening.

The reality of life at the University of Florida had begun. There will be those who affect my life, whether good, bad or indifferent. And at times I may feel embarrassed, proud, homesick, or any number of emotions. Life depends on how it is applied by the possessor. Mistakes will give birth to experience, and out of experience will grow maturity. In a few years I will undoubtedly be able to spot what is evidently a bewildered 1UF, and remember. But that's getting ahead of myself, for now I will learn, have fun, ask questions, and hopefully develop and grow.

© 1982 Philip M. DiComo

EPILOGUE

I was excited and anxious to be lucky enough to be in Harry Crews' freshman writing class my second semester and UF.  I knew the infamous southern writer likely was only teaching freshman because he was required by the English Department. I was told not to be upset when I get my first grades back because he doesn't give anyone higher than a 'D' on his first paper, and most don't even do that well.  So, once I got the first assignment I aggravated over what to write. I literally stared at my typewriter for days.  The evening before the paper was due I just started writing about my actual experience when I was going to my first writing class with Crews at the helm. I wasn't happy with it, but I at least had a paper to turn in. Now, I look back and see "Freshman Reality" is a bit overwritten, but not bad for someone who just turned 18. Turns out, though, this little paper is the proudest moment of my college career, and my greatest memory (of many great memories) from my days at the University of Florida. When Harry Crews stumbled into our class room with his wife-beater shirt, unshaven face and unkempt hair on the day our papers were to be returned, he slowly doled out the Ds and Fs while lecturing everyone about how we should already know grammar and the English language, and it wasn't his job to teach us basics that we should already know. I feared getting my paper and braced for it when he threw it on my desk in that musty classroom in the basement of Matherly Hall. Along with the grade, was a note scribbled on the top that I cherished so much that I thought that I must not be reading his writing correctly.

My first paper and the grade from Harry Crews!

Now, I wrote much worse papers that semester, but for a writer like Harry Crews to put that on a paper I wrote, it meant everything to a lost freshman. Still does.  I found out over the course of that semester that Harry was having a hard time fighting his alcoholism at that time.  He missed more classes than not. However, we met as a class on Tuesdays, and in lieu of a second class that week he required students to meet with him in his

My desk, Broward Hall 2nd Floor East, UF 1982-83.

office in the English Department in GPA (now apparently Turlington Hall, but always GPA to me) to discuss that week's paper.  At my designated first meeting, Harry said to me, "What are you doing here?"  I was a bit miffed, and told him I was here for my required meeting. He told me I didn't need to meet with him, but well, I was there, and I was a willing audience, so for the entire semester instead of reviewing my papers we would talk, and he would pull articles and magazines and books out of his file cabinets for me to read.  I didn't realize it at the time, but handfuls of graduate students were holding court with Harry Crews at Lillian's Music Store (actually a bar) on many Gainesville nights in order to accumulate knowledge, feel his aura and gain his favor, and I was an audience of one with Harry nearly every week the entire semester. I heard great stories from Harry, including one about an Emmett Kelly, Jr. screenplay he was writing, too much alcohol, and an English professor who I had the prior semester (and really despised), who Harry had punched out for a seemingly pretty good reason from my viewpoint (which made me very happy), forcing him to submit his resignation to the university, which was summarily denied. 

Great Harry Crews Biography:

What we call the present is given shape by an Accumulation of the Past.

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Every day moments accumulate in our lives, and we experience them with great feeling and passion, or even indifference. But they make up who we are and who we become as individuals and human beings. As the years accumulate, our memories and feelings about those memories tend to fade. Yet, everything we are today is given shape by each and every experience, so it is good to acknowledge the memories and life-moments that have brought us to today.