OMOC the book Intro

OMOC
Old Man On Campus

Introduction

(This is the introduction to my memoir, Old Man On Campus.  The book is being written as I progress toward my degree in English at Ohio State, and should be available by early 2012, hopefully prior to the end times, which could limit sales.  Thanks for reading, and keep checking for additional chapters.)

I’m back in school in my golden years.  At this writing, I’m 61 years old, sharing a classroom with a passel of twenty year old frat boys and coeds.  I’m, like, finishing my college degree, after like 38 years of like one thing and another: the draft, the Army, the war, the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, the wife and kid-mortgage-career-divorce-remarriage-retirement.  That kind of thing.  The minor details that like one gets mixed up in when life like happens.  Okay, enough of the like.  It’s almost contagious.  
    Why in God’s name would I put myself through this late-in-life, daily hassle of 7:30 a.m. English 201, trudging across a frozen campus before the sun is up, dreading midterms and finals, putting myself out there to be judged, and possibly humiliated, by a bunch of young punks?  And that’s just the teachers.  Good question.  You’ll have to read the book to find out.  But admit it; you’ve always yearned to go back to school, cram as much information as you can into the old squash, check in your dotage to see if the damned thing even works anymore (the brain, that is, forget the other bodily appendages and accessories, which are dropping off line with alarming regularity, and by the way thank God for Viagra).  Admit it; you, too, got interrupted somewhere along the line by something that cancelled a plan, something like marriage, kids, mortgage payments, career demands, military service etc.  One of the most frustrating things in modern life is the maddening interruptions we have to put up with.  We never get to finish anything more consequential than lunch, and even then...  It’s bad enough when the dog needs to take a dump halfway through our New York Times crossword of a Sunday morning.  Getting yanked out of college, more like kidnapped, and shipped off to Vietnam, then jerked back to real life and the slog for a job, and bills, and what our parents used to refer to as responsibilities?  That’s life-interruptus.  And it happens to everyone.   
    Do I need a college degree?  Absolutely not.  I got along fine without the old sheepskin for all my years of pursuing a career, paying the bills, moving up the ladder, even putting aside a little nest egg, which takes some doing these days.  College degree?  Just another life fantasy that was put aside about ‘69, along with my bell-bottoms, ERA NOW! bumper sticker and Joan Baez eight tracks.  Did I have a blank spot on my wall that needed something suitable for framing?  Nope.  Did I have GI bill money sitting idle?  Huh-uh.  Was I bored, curious, crazy?  None of the above.  No.  So why go back? 
    Here’s a little taste of it: The first day of classes, I parked the car in the lot--next to the motorcycles and the battered Honda Civic with no hubcaps, and slung my (brand new) backpack across my shoulder.  When I stepped onto the oval that bracing Fall morning, thirty-eight years fell away.  I stopped in the middle of the campus, like a doddering old fool, staring at the surroundings: The main library towered above the oval, like the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey; the old brick and stone admin building stood right where it was when the students took it over in ’68; the old bell tower with its legendary chimes greeted me with a peal of welcome, and the aroma of autumn leaves kicked up by the breeze smelled like an old history book.  It was as if I’d taken a sabbatical, finished a long work study, and was once again immersed in the academic environment I’d left behind when my draft notice arrived in the mail in 1969.  Rip Van Winkle meets English 201.  
    So it’s unfinished business, yes, but it’s much more than that.  Baby boomer that I am, I’m guilty of the charge of refusing to grow up.  But, to my knowledge, no one has researched the phenomenon to discover why we’re like that.  Here’s part of the answer: We Boomers were interrupted in the middle of some pretty important business partway through our development.  Not to get all airy-fairy, or pop-psycho, but the issues of my adolescence got a lot more attention than a silly college degree.  There was Vietnam, the women’s movement, seismic changes in male-female roles, The Bomb, Nixon/Agnew, and the subtle pressure we felt to live up to the Greatest Generation (thanks a lot Brokaw).  No wonder I refuse, at 61, to grow up completely; some of my college years were left in shreds on that campus, and I want them back, dammit!  I’m trying to gather them up, put them back together, and see what the results may have been. 
    I’m not back in college to ogle the girls.  That preoccupation was something that caused my grade card to be spattered with red ink back in my hormonal twenties, which lustful endeavor led to my sagging grades, then Selective Service re-classification to 1-A, which led to my draft notice, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Back in ‘69, as I made my way across the oval, like every other male of the straight persuasion, I mentally denuded each of those luscious, nubile young ladies, fantasizing about every lascivious sexual act ever invented by man and/or beast with them, one after another.  It’s a wonder I didn’t hurt myself.  If we men are hard wired to repopulate the earth single-handed, I wanted to get started right then, on the oval, sweetie, this will just take a minute but the backpack has to go.  Now I look at those young women, with their fresh scrubbed faces, shared laughter like a gaggle of new chicks, their sweet smiles like peach yogurt, and what I want to do is gather them up, give them all a hug and tell them there, there, it’s going to be alright, that Comp Lit isn’t that hard, and he’ll call you ‘cause you’re so precious cute, and he’s a fool if he doesn’t, don’t worry.  Whole other perspective.   
    Part of it is simply this: I’m having the time of my life.  I have the opportunity; I have the money; I have support from my sweet wife; and I have the inclination.  Plus--and this makes me smile inside and out--it’s on Uncle Sam’s nickel.  My tuition is taken care of by way of my military retirement check, which arrives every month like clockwork, much like my draft notice did, come to think of it. 
    So in July of 2009, I dropped into the admissions office, yelled “I’m back”, and they not only took me in with open arms, they helped me sign up for classes.  After the laughter died down, that is.  My plan is to get my diploma, and start social security the same day.  Here’s how.