Robert Zamsky, I owe you the world.
About four and a half years ago, I stepped out of my car and onto the pavement in front of the Student Union, ready to take on the world for a chance at playing college baseball and hopefully one day owning a sporting goods store with my B.A. in business from the University at Buffalo.
I've had two majors here at UB, and the first lasted approximately 36 hours. On the second day of classes I sat down with a collection of short stories and listened to Zamsky preach about the genius we'd read in the next three months: Carver, Atwood, Joyce.
I thought he was full of crap.
A couple hours later, bored out of my mind at a macroeconomics class, I cracked open the textbook, "The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction," and read Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge."
That was that.
Within weeks I had met with Linda Bogdan in Clemens Hall, and a poverty-laden career began. Over the course of my tenure in the English department, I had only one professor who wasn't worth paying attention to, and everyone I know who has had him constantly wonders if student evaluations mean anything.
I was never really happy to get out of bed and head over to college.
College.
I can't tell you exactly how I'll feel about my five - yes, five - years when I leave here, but I can tell you the word college sounding past tense is pretty intense. When I left high school, it was with the aire of a kid who didn't really do anything more than he had to when it came to school.
Everyone I knew told me - as well as every other high school senior - that I wasn't ready for it, and they were right. They tell you to get involved with school organizations and, sorry SA, my goodness were they wrong.
From the 5 a.m. Ice Hockey Club try-outs to the Baseball Club's ballgames out of town to "not being indie enough" for Generation - yes, that Generation - to long nights here at The Spectrum, this thing was a beast.
Did I just say someone thought I wasn't indie enough?
Throw in having at least two jobs at a time for the duration, a touring rock 'n' roll operation and a family you can't even find the time to eat dinner with and, well, you get the idea.
This in no way is a "feel sorry" piece, rather it's a piece that acknowledges that this isn't a joke. Whether your hobby is masochistically working 16 jobs at once or sitting in the Student Union talking about which dude's backwards Yankees or Mets hat looked slicker and whose daddy has more money, you've got a lot to do outside of school.
Lest we forget it could be even more difficult for students who are not English majors - not because English is an easy major, but because it's full of helpful people and teachers that often spoke so brilliantly that I was afraid to give them my term paper to read.
I guess that's the thing about UB. One day I woke up and realized all the good things about it. With all the parking issues, blatant student government tomfoolery (a kind word at best) and multiple Fests that smacked more of repugnance than godliness, it's easy to forget about everything and everyone wonderful on campus.
So for Prof. Scott Stevens' patience while I learned Milton at a snail's pace:
Thank you.
To former Department chair Barbara Bono, for sticking up for her grad students and taking one for the team:
Thank you.
To professors Stefan Fleischer and Mark Shechner for talking about life and literature as they really are: symbiotic.
Thank you.
To intramural referee/shooting guard Roderick Middleton, for the possession arrow when our intramural team was losing 114-32, and for playing under a coach and with a team of guys who made a college basketball fan proud.
Thank you.
For my mother, father, brother and sisters putting up with a kid who unknowingly spent two years coping with a sleep disorder and attention problems because he thought he was just becoming stupid like tax breaks for the wealthy.
Thank you. I love you.
God bless you, your families and those we will never meet.
Goodnight.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
