RIC

Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world...and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children!

I went back to my old college, RIC, to keep an appointment with a career counselor. I'm looking into the future, short term and long term and realizing that changes will occur whether I want them to or not. I do however prefer the environment around me become a product of mine, not the other way around. We'll see how lucky I am.

“You do realize the retirement horizon is looking at you.” C. Carsini said to me. What's weird, I know this, but when someone else says it to your face....ouch. By the way, RIC is still staffed with women from Nawt Providence, a third were chewing gum.

I had figured the campus had changed but I wasn't ready, nor aware of how much it has really transformed. Driving in from Mt Pleasant I was greeted with LED signs, external bulletin boards, telling me what's up for the day, week and month there at RIC. As I walked from my car to Robert's Hall, I was met with even more change.

“Where did that building come from? It wasn't here 10 years ago.”

“And that one...”

“No...the Fogarty building never had an annex.”

The main building I was interested in was Gaige Hall, where I spent a pleasurable part of my youth. There was one room where the History Club met daily and we commandeered it for our own hedonistic use, with the help of a professor who ran interference for us. I wanted to see it again.

After meeting the counselor, she had told me, “Well, if you go to Gaige, the only thing that remains, and what you'll remember, is the outside brick work.”

So I go Gaige and am stunned. The place has been gutted and re-designed. It's a bit sterile but the electronic kiosks, the WiFi antennas and a host of other new gadgets fill the place. The elevators talk and the water fountains have digital screens on them. Why would you possibly need a digital screen on a bubbler? I should have tried it out to see what it does...but I didn't.

I try to find that room we all hung out at and had so much fun.

Not There.

I try all floors, perhaps my memory is off.

Not There. Not There.

But I remember it being there! This place is of Legend! It looks like it was ripped out and turned into a larger classroom. It has similar, but smaller equipment Roger Waters used to project images/movies on his Wall. A youngish professor was on a lap top running it all for this summer session class, spraying images of Medieval Europe on the white board that transformed from one to another.

Damn...

Well, it was 32 years ago...Shit...I grow old.

**

Another thing about being my age, you pack on the experience. As I walked the campus I noticed the women there. Of course I did, nothing's prettier than a college girl. But as I passed them walking, sitting down reading, my brain just popped out quickie evaluations of them I could never have forged when I was that age. I wasn't mature enough yet. I had not yet learned that people wear, quite unconsciously, their innermost personality on their shoulders. From that, you get a nearly decent estimation of them. I suppose working with the deaf population taught me a few things as well. Body language for example.

I passed one girl, at a table, slightly geekish and reading. She looked up with a hint of desperation to talk to anyone. “Who are you? Are you alive? Wow..a REAL person!”

“Lonely...stuck living in her dorm all summer long” I thought.

Another I talked to in order to find a certain room...

“Professional girl working for RIC, being paid crap. Lit up when I talked to her...bored shitless she is.”

In the waiting room at CC at RIC, a 20 year old with the self esteem of a bug was reading a weight loss magazine. What drew me toward that was her long sigh after holding up a fold out showing a genetically lucky girl who was proportioned perfectly. This girl who was sighing didn't need to lose an ounce. But try to tell her that. Try to tell her that she's in her 20's and has the best look she'll ever have, before age ruins her.

There was a kid I passed, his look was of defeated confidence. God knows why. He had passed a girl his age, a nice girl, who looked up at him as they walked by each other. He never spotted her curiosity. He was lost in his mind and missed that look he received.

I passed a proverbial douchebag as well. Every college has a few of them. The thing was I could see right through that mask. Those guys I knew in my college years seemed to “with it” but now...jesus..now I see them as jokes. “All you have, my friend, is your display, you have no talent yet, you have no chops!”

Only if...only if...I had this perception when I was at RIC then, I'd have 24 bastard children out there somewhere. Maybe it's very lucky I didn't...considering child support. But still...it would've been more fun.

Nope, you don't get these powers of perception until you're ancient. It takes a long, long time to bake that cake to completion. These college kids are still jiggly, with much liquid cake batter not just set yet. But, to have that done when you're young! To have that capacity at such a young age!

I will grow my brilliant white hair and beard out. I'll get a staff, ramble around like Gandolf and offer proverbs to the young who cannot fathom what I am talking about. What I preach about doesn't exist nor has it ever existed to anyone that young. They don't get it.

There was a time when I never “got it” either.

I do now. The price for that skill is time, a lot of it too.