Turning 21

I turned 21 on April 6, 1989. I have very few memories of this day but I know that I was a junior in college, and that I definitely had dinner at Holmes and Watson in downtown Troy. My favorite meal there was a patty melt with french fries. Of course, now that I was 21, I would be able to wash it down with a nice cold beer.

Holmes and Watson had a feature where you could start a World Tour of Beers. You would ask the bartender for a World Tour card, which was a long rectangular card listing all the beers available on tap and bottle. The bartender put your name on the card, and your Tour began. You had one calendar year to drink 50 beers off the card (there were up to 80 beers from many countries). I knew people who completed multiple Tours and I aspired to be like them.

The Tour cards were stored in a wooden box with dividers for letters, and people who were serious about the Tour would fish their card out when they entered the restaurant. After you ordered a beer off the card, the bartender would punch a hole next to that beer's listing on the card.  Finishing the Tour rewards you with a tee-shirt, a mug and a hat. I'm proud that I finished my Tour before the year ended.

I'm pretty certain that I would have had this 21st birthday dinner with Dean Kehoe, a classmate from Massachusetts who indulged my humor and my poor attitude towards school at that time. I relished the opportunity to drink legally, and he and I were regulars at Sutters, a nearby bar that was famous for Thursday night wings, a loud juke box, and cheap beer by the pitcher.

Turning 21 is supposed to be the start of adulthood, but I admit that I had a rocky start. I was unhappy in school, and I wanted to tranquilize my anxious state. I wanted to make changes. I wanted to start over. I felt a lot of pressure, but when I look back, it was all self-imposed and self-inflicted. It took a while to gain my bearings and to take the reigns of my adult life.

There's a lot the 53-year old me would have told the 21-year old me. I'm not certain I would have listened back then, but I'm listening now.

Me in college

 

College

Our house is too big now
We're missing our teen
With her up in college
We've lost our routine.

Her room has her stuff
Lots of movies and books
It's just as she left it
Every time we take looks.

Our chores are now different
We clean a bit less
We're cooking for two
There's not that much mess.

We love that she's learning
But school's a good drive
With FaceTime and texts though
We're not too deprived.

For all of us three
We feel all the feels
It's a new phase of life
Let's see what reveals!

College Reminisce: Imagine All the People

My class at RPI had about a thousand students, so I met a lot of people in college. It would have been hard not to. A handful of these classmates became very good friends, and I'm grateful. However, here are four RPI people who weren't my classmates, but who helped make my college experience that much more memorable.

Linda Strunk

Linda was the editor in chief of the school magazine ("The Engineer") when I joined that publication my freshman year. I was blown away by her amazing energy. She pushed people only as hard as she would push herself, but she really pushed herself hard. Not only was she hands-on, and detail-oriented, but she was an able manager and delegator. I learned that she had really good grades despite a demanding extra-curricular schedule. Her life outside of school was spent in pursuit of achievement, whether it was the classical guitar, or a coveted internship in Japan. To this day when I think about people with "drive", I think about Linda.

Randy Rumpf

During my work in the school magazine, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting and getting to know Randy, an in-house graphics illustrator for the school. He was part of a very small staff in a far off building from the main campus. My visits there were business oriented at first, but Randy's easy charm and welcoming manner made me stay. He had great stories about the school, and life beyond school. His artwork and illustrations graced many of RPI's brochures, posters and signs, and the pride he took from his work was a great example to me.

Trish Doyle

Trish was one of the counselors at RPI's Career Development Center. She was one of the people who helped me with getting into a co-op program, a short-term job (six months) that emphasizes classroom learning. When I returned to school, I joined a group that worked with Trish to promote the co-op program on-campus. Trish was a delightful person to know, and became one of my favorite RPI people. She was always great company and she made "the institute" a nicer place, especially in my junior and senior years.

Ephraim Glinert

Professor Glinert taught "Computer Fundamentals" my freshman year, and he has the distinction of introducing me to UNIX, a computer operating system that I have used professionally in every job since I graduated. I don't remember why I was visiting him at his office, but I do remember him turning to his terminal, and logging in to check on something. The system he used seemed so much faster and sleeker than the system we freshmen used. "This is UNIX," he said. "You'll be lucky once you get on this; it's nicer than MTS." He was right.

I'm attending my 20th college reunion this month, so I'm posting some college memories.

College Reminisce: BOHICA

Rensselaer kicked my young academic ass.

I was a high-flying, straight-A student in high school. I took great pride in my grades. I was always on the honor roll. I did very well in math and science. My SATs were nothing to brag about (below 1200!), but I'm convinced my class rank (top five) coupled with the academic rigor of my high school got me into Rensselaer.

I remember how cocky I was that I had taken calculus my senior year of high school, but in the first week of math at RPI, the teaching assistant derived in one afternoon's recitation everything that I had learned in my entire year of high school calculus. I had one thought when that recitation finished: this was going to be hard.

I thought I had developed good study habits in high school. I thought I understood time management. I thought I worked hard. My grades in college said "there's room for improvement." Instead of A's and B's in my tests, I started receiving C's and D's. I was prone to procrastination. I didn't fail or drop out, but I felt under water nearly all the time.

My sharpest memory of the difficulty of our courses comes from my first finals week. The freshman dorms were quiet with nervous last-minute studying. Every now and then, someone would open their window and let out a primal scream, which would be answered by further screaming as people began to crack under the pressure of cramming a semester's worth of material in one evening. I discovered coffee during this period.

Even after feeling the relief from completing one final, you couldn't rest because another was scheduled the next day. In our dorm, someone bounded out of his room and announced "it's BOHICA time!" Here it comes again, indeed.

The rest of my college academic experience followed a similar arc. Difficult courses, precious few moments of relief, and the constant sense that I was always behind. By sophomore year, I began to accept that I wasn't going to make the Dean's List every semester. By junior year, I began to embrace the mantra that "D" stood for diploma. By senior year, I justified not finishing projects with the grim calculation that project work didn't "count as much" as the final exam.

I did eventually graduate. After a summer and an extra semester, I put together enough classes and passing grades to get a diploma. Just to be sure, however, I rummaged around my attic to find my college transcript. It turns out that I was on the Dean's List four times, and I only had 3 D's and one "incomplete" (for that class in which I skipped the project). My final GPA was a respectable 2.72.

Seeing the transcript makes me sigh with relief even now. I still drink coffee, but I haven't had to scream or think about BOHICA since graduating.

I'm attending my 20th college reunion this month, so I'm posting some college memories.

College Reminisce: Deciding

When I think about what pushed me to attend college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), I think about a brief conversation I had with Jack Raslowsky, who was my high school soccer coach. I wanted some of his advice on how to decide where to go to college. I had just received an acceptance letter from RPI, but I had already received an acceptance to Stevens Institute of Technology.

Stevens was a college I had been thinking about since freshman year in high school. Stevens was in Hoboken, right next door to where I lived in Jersey City, NJ. Stevens had a computer science program, and I thought it was cool that they required incoming freshmen to purchase a computer.

Both RPI and Stevens were technical schools, but the big difference to me was that one was close to home, and the other wasn't. One was the comfortable nearby choice, and the other was a far away unknown. I don't remember how it came out exactly, but Jack told me that you could learn more about yourself by going away, by leaving home. This advice rang around in my head for probably a few days. It had a certain appeal.

Eventually I asked my parents to take me up to RPI. It was a relatively short trip (three hours) up to Troy, New York. As we climbed up the hill through campus, I remember thinking how unique it looked. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect. All around me were students, talking at the corner, carrying books, walking to class, lying on the wide lawn outside the student union. I marveled at the gorgeous buildings. I was energized being there, my mind expanding with the possibilities.

By the time we began the long drive home, I felt the sheer excitement of having made a decision. I was going to Rensselaer.

I'm attending my 20th college reunion this month, so I'm posting some college memories.

San Diego Serenade

In my last year of college, I was a DJ for my college radio station. One evening, a DJ was complaining to me that she had the next day's morning shift. "No one listens to WRPI in the morning," she said. I believed her. It was early summer, and most of the students had fled for vacation. I told her I'd get up and tune in to her show.

The next morning, I got up and put on the radio. This could have been a Saturday morning, this could have been before 8AM, I no longer remember the details. But I did remember her cheery voice saying "Rick? You up? You should get down the station because there are all these dogs at the door, and they look like they want to have breakfast. Enjoy this one."

The next song she played was Tom Waits' "San Diego Serenade". The words washed over me like a gentle shower. The lyrics were sentimental and plaintive. "Never saw the morning until I stayed up all night. Never saw the sunshine until you turned out the light. Never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long. Never heard the melody until I needed the song." With those words, Waits launches into a list of laments, each making sense, each seemingly profound though simple.

People get attached to songs, as if the songs speak to them specifically. When I heard San Diego Serenade that bright morning, it crystallized my feelings going into that odd summer. It's a song about getting older, and about the circle of life. It's a song about taking the good with the bad. It's about love and heartbreak. I was 22 when I first heard it, and the song made me think about being an adult. It still tugs at my heart almost twenty years later.

Note: This month, I will be writing about songs.

Pomp and Circumstance

It's that time of year again, when a fresh crop of graduates hits the streets. Are you a graduate this year? Then listen up.

Congratulations you grads. Today's your day. You made it through four, or five, or six years of college, and by tonight, you'll have a diploma, or as my wife calls it "a fancy receipt." It should be a happy occasion for you. It was for me!

Much has been made of the college education. It seems an irrefutable fact that having one is essential to "making it" in this country. I want to remind you all that it's still possible to get one of these pieces of paper, and still not "make it". There are scores of unhappy, overeducated people working at jobs below their "diploma." How do you know you won't be one of them? Here's some hints:

1) Only you know what makes you happy. Not your spouse. Not your family. Not your closest friend. Only you. The more you know what makes you happy, the better off you'll be. Whenever you look at the successful people of our times, you find that they often started with something they were happy with. Are you doing that?

2) Passion is underrated. People hear passion, and think about that strong love/lust that they feel in the beginning of a relationship with someone. But I want you to consider its other definition: boundless enthusiasm. You know that feeling you get in the morning, just as you're waking up, when you remember that you were going to do "something", and that something made you excited? You couldn't wait to get up and get at it? That's passion. Do you have it for what you've just studied?

3) You only have a limited time. The life expectancy of the modern American is towards the 80s. That gives you sixty years. I'm down to my last forty. This is either a lot of time, or it's too little time. No matter how you slice it, it's the only time we've got. Think about the first two questions in light of this.

4) You're not done learning. You're never done learning. Did you think that by earning this diploma you're finally able to lean back and say "I'm done with learning?" And I'm not talking about book learning. I'm talking about learning about people, about yourself. I'm talking about learning what's current, what's next, and what's on the horizon. If there's one thing a diploma proves (almost): it proves you can learn. Will you keep doing it?

The diploma you'll be looking at tonight is one measure of accomplishment. It's a stepping stone. But that's all it is. And it's not the only stepping stone. Don't delude yourself into thinking that this paper entitles you to anything. Don't believe the hype that a diploma will give you security. It doesn't.

The longer I think about it, the more I recognize how close to the truth my wife is: a diploma is sometimes nothing more than a receipt. Build your life answering the questions above. If you're like me, twenty years from now, you may not even remember where your diploma is.

Commencement

The news is peppered with commencement speech summaries. Famous and notable people are making their way across college campuses, dispensing wisdom, proclaiming advice, exhorting action. I sometimes imagine myself addressing a high school or college graduation.

I'd remind students that commencement isn't about endings, but about beginnings (the word commence means 'to begin, to initiate'). I'd tell them to look back with pride, but look forward with excitement.

I'd advise them to listen to their hearts these next few tender years. What does your heart want to do? Don't question it! It doesn't know why. It wants what it wants. What do you want to do? You can listen to your heart when you're thirty or forty, but the chances of following your heart are strongest now.

I'd tell students what they don't want to hear: that time is short. You're only young once. Someday, you'll be weighed down with "practical matters": job, marriage, mortgage, children. You'll be ordinary like me, and you have to make the best of it, by being the person you want to be.

I'd ask parents to truly let go at this stage. I'd also ask the same of old friends. We have to let them go. We have to let them fly. We've given them our money, our support. Now let's give them their time.

People of accomplishment are favored speakers at commencement exercises, but living a good life is an accomplishment itself. And a good life can be had with simple lessons: listen and know yourself; be positive; be good. It shouldn't take a famous person to remind graduates of this.

Drinking

I don't drink anymore, not like I used to.

In college, the start of my drinking years, I drank beers like soda. By sophomore year, the little refrigerator in my dorm room was jammed with cans of cheap beer, which I consumed as early as lunch. I never felt like I drank too much, but more than once I woke up sick from an evening's excess; more than once I've passed out in some lounge area. I've had grain alcohol, drunk flaming shots, damn near choked while attempting a funnel (only once; maybe twice). I participated in most of the silliness involved with casual but frequent drinking. In my senior year at college, the class gift to the school was a pub and I drank there every night until I graduated. Literally.

Sterling Barrett, one of my post-college roommates, set me straight on drinking. He showed me how to appreciate a quiet drink: gin and tonic, bourbon over ice. He was fond of the Negroni. Even though I didn't enjoy it like he did, I certainly began to enjoy and appreciate this slower drinking.

Tonight I had a Jack Daniels on crushed ice after dinner. I finished it an hour ago, and have been drinking water ever since. I haven't gotten college-drunk since, well, since college. The last drink I had before tonight was probably a few weeks ago, when Jenn and I went out (we had wine).

I sometimes ponder what led me to drink so much back in school. My first attempts to spread my wings while I was away from home? To belong to the "fun crowd?" To escape from my petty miseries? Whatever those impulses were back then, they're gone now. I'm grateful.

Paying Off My College Loan

I received confirmation today from the lending bank that they have received my final student loan payment. My student loan towards Rensselaer is now "paid in full". I called the bank and inquired about the final payoff amount (almost $700), and wrote them a check in the middle of June.

The loan to pay off my college education was $16,000, but thanks to simple interest (8%), I owed a total of $23,000. I started paying off this loan in August of 1991. I knew from the notes that it would take ten years. And here I am, ten years later: absolved of this almost-$200 monthly obligation.

I can recall times I let the monthly payment 'slip' a few weeks, but I never failed to pay the full monthly amount every month. I like to think that Jenn and I were able to get a mortgage because of my dutiful payment of this loan through the years.

Was college worth all this though? Yes. Absolutely. It's true I don't need to use physics, chemistry, or advanced calculus, but I am always learning using the methods I picked up at school. My perspective and sensibilities about technology and science were gained at Rensselaer.

I first logged into UNIX at RPI, and I still refer to my school-aged battered copy of The UNIX Programming Environment. I wrote hard software there (a C-like interpreter, a shell). I attended a co-op at JPL, where I discovered what I could contribute as a computer professional.

But even beyond all the 'school' stuff were the people, and experiences: learning to ice skate at the Houston Field House; being a college radio dee-jay; going to midnight movies; road trips; absurd drinking games; bonding over ice hockey, pizza, dinners, and late-night studying. Many of good friends are from RPI, class of 1990.

College was where I tried growing up. College was where I gained some perspective. College was my launching pad.

My student loan, pricey as it was, pales in comparison to the actual value of my collegiate experiences.

Skimming Headlines

Yesterday, I read in the Boston Globe that someone donated $360 million to my college, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. On the school website, it's touted as the largest gift ever to any public or private university in the United States. Two things that I'd like to point out.

• I'm not the anonymous donor.
• I only encountered this news via the newspaper.

Despite the prevalent use of the Internet for news and information, nothing beats reading the headlines of a major United States newspaper. I was quite specific about just reading the headlines. I don't read the newspaper with any sort of depth. In fact, there are days where I can only skim the headlines on the first pages of each section.

But when I do look at the newspaper, I see stuff like this news about my alma mater. It reminds me of why we have newspaper editors, and writers. These people are making decisions about what would be interesting to the public at large. And I'm glad.

I believe that with the Internet, it's too easy to focus on 'your speciality'. We dive deep, but forget breadth. We lose touch with what else is going on. We're not as 'informed'.

I know I could do more. I could listen to NPR. I could subscribe to more newspapers. I could be a regular TV news viewer. I don't these things. There are too many things. Which is why I like to skim the newspaper headlines to see just what else is going on.