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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Comedy / Humor
- Published: 04/29/2023
What I Learned in College
Born 1947, M, from Germantown/Ohio, United StatesIt was 1965, flat top or burr haircuts, penny loafers with no socks, white Levis, yellow Gant button down Oxford shirts, and yellow London Fog jackets. Feel free to look all these items up if unfamiliar.
I was “selected” to “matriculate” ….. as some call it ….. at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Why? I think it was because mom and dad said so ….. My mystery was trying to select a major. A mystery worthy of an Agatha Christie novel.
I learned that ….. I needed to learn.
My high school academic record could have been easily misconstrued as an “academic rap sheet.” I graduated ….. but some said I was just “released on my own recognizance” (ROR). Yet ….. forward I went into the academic abyss.
Of course “college in the 1960s” was nothing more than a ‘”refuge from the Viet Nam war” through a college deferment. The counterculture of the Jack Kerouac Beatniks from the 1950s had transitioned to the Haight-Asbury Hippies of the 1960s. Everything was changing and changing fast. The Beatles transformed music, clothing transformed into dirty jeans and tee shirts with holes, flat tops became men with dirty hair over their shoulders, and women in mini-skirts and halter tops.
I learned that the world changes.
Thank goodness ….. free love was all the rage. Yet, I mostly was forced to be true to my virginity.
I learned women are hard to figure.
I was in the Two-Year “University College” at UC and decided to “pursue” (settle for) an education in “Data Processing” ….. before they knew enough to call it Computer Science. I lived at home during the first half of my freshman year, but my parents moved to Dayton, Ohio and I needed to go into a dorm. The freshman dorm was full, so they housed me with 3 upper class students in a 4-man room.
My roommates consisted of two twenty-two-year-old draft dodgers, and another “draft-dodger-hopeful” of age 19. They were all majoring in “Marketing.” A major perhaps randomly drawn from a hat. I, however, was only 17 and was nothing more than “fresh meat” for their entertainment. I was quickly labeled “The Rookie” and was subject to two years of “initiation” pranks as they watch, laughed, and were fed grapes by their misguided, ignorant, adoring females.
I learned humility.
A hazmat suit could not protect you in our 4-man dorm room. My mothers beef stroganoff (BS) sat on the kitchen counter for 2 ½ months under a stack of newspapers and was discovered during the end of the quarter cleaning. To protect our lives and the lives of those on our floor, the BS Tupperware container was not opened, and it was buried in the trash without ceremony. Then there was the bathroom ….. I will spare you the details.
I learned ….. basically nothing ….. as the next quarter was no better.
So, given this pristine academic environment, I decided to major in “Marketing” myself since I thought that is what everybody was supposed to do. I transferred my two-years of credits from University College to that direction. An apt conclusion to my Agatha Christie Major Selection novel.
Also, the whole “draft dodging” thing also seemed attractive as I transferred, lost some credits, and thereby extended my glorious academic shelter.
I learned the value of taking advantage of situations.
None of the above, of course, solidified my self-confidence and life direction. It was now 1967 and events would only get worse from here. There were the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968.
I learned that uncertainty and fear are part of life.
Then there was the end of the college deferment from Viet Man in 1969. A large group of us watched the lottery drawing on TV in a large university room. We were all terrified. I was one of the lucky ones. My birthdate came up as a number 261 and I was not called into the draft.
I learned that life consists of some luck.
Through bad planning, I was forced to settle for an apartment off campus in year 4 in an old row house transformed into 5 apartments in a very rough area of town adjacent to campus. There were roaches you looked up to, water bugs you could saddle and ride, and my “front door” was a former sliding door to a dining room with a hastily installed, sometimes working lock.
I learned to plan ahead.
The girl in Apartment #5 at the top of the house had no shower. She would need to shower in the basement putting on a show for the roaches and water bugs. Occasionally she would scream and scamper up the basement stairs in terror.
I supposed she learned a thing or two living there.
In my first year I kept from being suspended as I talked my History teacher into changing my grade from a D to a C elevating my GPA to the minimum 1.7.
I learned how to beg.
In my “data processing” classes I learned about the incredible computer technologies of the 1960s. Hollerith Cards, interpreter boards, sorters, punching my own programs on an IBM 029 key punch. To run a program we put our “program deck” of punched cards on a “courier’s table.” The courier delivered the program to be run on the “advanced” IBM 7040 computer. We received the results the next day. If you had a semicolon out of place in your program deck ….. it took 24 hours to find out.
I learned to submit a “loop program” that did nothing but go to the top of the next page of the printer quickly spewing paper from the printer until the operator scrambled to stop the program.
I was the ultimate sportsman. I was the first man on my high school golf team. In the middle of my sophomore year I quit the UC golf team ….. not good enough.
Another dose of humility for me.
Then there were the fast fleeting “girlfriends.” Donna at 5’ 0”, Sherry at 5’ 4”, Smidge at 5’ 8”.
I actually had a date with a girl named “Gay June Wedding.”
Then there was Judy ….. she called me up to tell me she was getting married one day. Donna moved to a commune in Columbus.
Sherry asked me to be best man at her wedding in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Christmas day. I drove from Cincinnati to Ft. Wayne in a snow storm on Christmas Eve. I was stupid enough to attend, find out I was not expected to be best man, my room was not covered …..but they cut me a break and paid for it.
I “progressed” from Ft. Wayne to Danville, IL to visit my real girlfriend ….. Smidge. On arrival, Smidge, a nurse, announced she was going to Australia to learn how to be a midwife for a year.
From my girlfriend experiences I learned nothing ….. absolutely nothing ….. nada.
In my Senior year, after Smidge had returned from Australia I had become so confused and fearful of graduation that I bolted to Salt Lake City to visit her upon her return getting a bunch of Incompletes for my final courses.
For a month in Salt Lake City I lived with her, her roommate and two suddenly visiting girlfriends of theirs from Australia in a two-bedroom apartment ….. never once being allowed access to the constantly occupied bathroom. I actually investigated being a forest ranger. We broke up and I returned to Cincinnati.
Then, I managed to graduate somehow. I made up my abandoned “Incomplete” classes at Wright State University in Dayton, transferred the credits back to UC and in 1972 was “awarded” two diplomas:
Associate degree in Data Processing.
Bachelor’s degree in Marketing.
So, my college experience was a “short” seven years ….. compared to the draft dodgers.
I leveraged my Data Processing degree into a successful career in programming, software quality, metrics, software process and project management for 34 years.
My Marketing degree I enclosed in a frame and could probably discover it through an extensive archaeological dig.
Somehow I survived all this to be a married father of four sons who seem to be OK and are successful and am still married after 40 years.
So, what did I really learn in college? I learned what we all learn ….. whether we are in college or not that ….. life is uncertain and you can make it through life by making mistakes, recovering from those mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and discover your life direction ….. if luck breaks your way.
What I Learned in College(Tom Keltner)
It was 1965, flat top or burr haircuts, penny loafers with no socks, white Levis, yellow Gant button down Oxford shirts, and yellow London Fog jackets. Feel free to look all these items up if unfamiliar.
I was “selected” to “matriculate” ….. as some call it ….. at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Why? I think it was because mom and dad said so ….. My mystery was trying to select a major. A mystery worthy of an Agatha Christie novel.
I learned that ….. I needed to learn.
My high school academic record could have been easily misconstrued as an “academic rap sheet.” I graduated ….. but some said I was just “released on my own recognizance” (ROR). Yet ….. forward I went into the academic abyss.
Of course “college in the 1960s” was nothing more than a ‘”refuge from the Viet Nam war” through a college deferment. The counterculture of the Jack Kerouac Beatniks from the 1950s had transitioned to the Haight-Asbury Hippies of the 1960s. Everything was changing and changing fast. The Beatles transformed music, clothing transformed into dirty jeans and tee shirts with holes, flat tops became men with dirty hair over their shoulders, and women in mini-skirts and halter tops.
I learned that the world changes.
Thank goodness ….. free love was all the rage. Yet, I mostly was forced to be true to my virginity.
I learned women are hard to figure.
I was in the Two-Year “University College” at UC and decided to “pursue” (settle for) an education in “Data Processing” ….. before they knew enough to call it Computer Science. I lived at home during the first half of my freshman year, but my parents moved to Dayton, Ohio and I needed to go into a dorm. The freshman dorm was full, so they housed me with 3 upper class students in a 4-man room.
My roommates consisted of two twenty-two-year-old draft dodgers, and another “draft-dodger-hopeful” of age 19. They were all majoring in “Marketing.” A major perhaps randomly drawn from a hat. I, however, was only 17 and was nothing more than “fresh meat” for their entertainment. I was quickly labeled “The Rookie” and was subject to two years of “initiation” pranks as they watch, laughed, and were fed grapes by their misguided, ignorant, adoring females.
I learned humility.
A hazmat suit could not protect you in our 4-man dorm room. My mothers beef stroganoff (BS) sat on the kitchen counter for 2 ½ months under a stack of newspapers and was discovered during the end of the quarter cleaning. To protect our lives and the lives of those on our floor, the BS Tupperware container was not opened, and it was buried in the trash without ceremony. Then there was the bathroom ….. I will spare you the details.
I learned ….. basically nothing ….. as the next quarter was no better.
So, given this pristine academic environment, I decided to major in “Marketing” myself since I thought that is what everybody was supposed to do. I transferred my two-years of credits from University College to that direction. An apt conclusion to my Agatha Christie Major Selection novel.
Also, the whole “draft dodging” thing also seemed attractive as I transferred, lost some credits, and thereby extended my glorious academic shelter.
I learned the value of taking advantage of situations.
None of the above, of course, solidified my self-confidence and life direction. It was now 1967 and events would only get worse from here. There were the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968.
I learned that uncertainty and fear are part of life.
Then there was the end of the college deferment from Viet Man in 1969. A large group of us watched the lottery drawing on TV in a large university room. We were all terrified. I was one of the lucky ones. My birthdate came up as a number 261 and I was not called into the draft.
I learned that life consists of some luck.
Through bad planning, I was forced to settle for an apartment off campus in year 4 in an old row house transformed into 5 apartments in a very rough area of town adjacent to campus. There were roaches you looked up to, water bugs you could saddle and ride, and my “front door” was a former sliding door to a dining room with a hastily installed, sometimes working lock.
I learned to plan ahead.
The girl in Apartment #5 at the top of the house had no shower. She would need to shower in the basement putting on a show for the roaches and water bugs. Occasionally she would scream and scamper up the basement stairs in terror.
I supposed she learned a thing or two living there.
In my first year I kept from being suspended as I talked my History teacher into changing my grade from a D to a C elevating my GPA to the minimum 1.7.
I learned how to beg.
In my “data processing” classes I learned about the incredible computer technologies of the 1960s. Hollerith Cards, interpreter boards, sorters, punching my own programs on an IBM 029 key punch. To run a program we put our “program deck” of punched cards on a “courier’s table.” The courier delivered the program to be run on the “advanced” IBM 7040 computer. We received the results the next day. If you had a semicolon out of place in your program deck ….. it took 24 hours to find out.
I learned to submit a “loop program” that did nothing but go to the top of the next page of the printer quickly spewing paper from the printer until the operator scrambled to stop the program.
I was the ultimate sportsman. I was the first man on my high school golf team. In the middle of my sophomore year I quit the UC golf team ….. not good enough.
Another dose of humility for me.
Then there were the fast fleeting “girlfriends.” Donna at 5’ 0”, Sherry at 5’ 4”, Smidge at 5’ 8”.
I actually had a date with a girl named “Gay June Wedding.”
Then there was Judy ….. she called me up to tell me she was getting married one day. Donna moved to a commune in Columbus.
Sherry asked me to be best man at her wedding in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Christmas day. I drove from Cincinnati to Ft. Wayne in a snow storm on Christmas Eve. I was stupid enough to attend, find out I was not expected to be best man, my room was not covered …..but they cut me a break and paid for it.
I “progressed” from Ft. Wayne to Danville, IL to visit my real girlfriend ….. Smidge. On arrival, Smidge, a nurse, announced she was going to Australia to learn how to be a midwife for a year.
From my girlfriend experiences I learned nothing ….. absolutely nothing ….. nada.
In my Senior year, after Smidge had returned from Australia I had become so confused and fearful of graduation that I bolted to Salt Lake City to visit her upon her return getting a bunch of Incompletes for my final courses.
For a month in Salt Lake City I lived with her, her roommate and two suddenly visiting girlfriends of theirs from Australia in a two-bedroom apartment ….. never once being allowed access to the constantly occupied bathroom. I actually investigated being a forest ranger. We broke up and I returned to Cincinnati.
Then, I managed to graduate somehow. I made up my abandoned “Incomplete” classes at Wright State University in Dayton, transferred the credits back to UC and in 1972 was “awarded” two diplomas:
Associate degree in Data Processing.
Bachelor’s degree in Marketing.
So, my college experience was a “short” seven years ….. compared to the draft dodgers.
I leveraged my Data Processing degree into a successful career in programming, software quality, metrics, software process and project management for 34 years.
My Marketing degree I enclosed in a frame and could probably discover it through an extensive archaeological dig.
Somehow I survived all this to be a married father of four sons who seem to be OK and are successful and am still married after 40 years.
So, what did I really learn in college? I learned what we all learn ….. whether we are in college or not that ….. life is uncertain and you can make it through life by making mistakes, recovering from those mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and discover your life direction ….. if luck breaks your way.
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Kevin Hughes
02/25/2024Tom,
That was beautifully written. As an Ohio boy msyelf, I enjoyed the College tour. I was in the Ohio National Guard in 1969 - so I didn't have to go to College to dodge the draft. After Kent State tho, I told the Company Commander that I did not join the National Guard to Point guns at Americans. So I switched to Active Duty Army. Riot Duty, Race Riots, College Protests, and the National Teamster's Strike kept us National Guardsmen busy during those turbulent years.
And the Army sent me to Germany...after training me for Vietnam at TigerLand. One of only two graduates from Tigerland to not get orders fro Nam. So yeah, luck has a lot to do with it!
As you can see, your story activated my own memories of growing up in Cleveland. And I did go to college later...and a whole bunch of them too. Finally they gave me a degree and set me free on my own recognizance. Loved that line!
Smiles, Kevin
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Joel Kiula
02/19/2024College taught me how to make right decisions and on timely manner, to value myself and to navigate into the world with a clear mindset. This is a very beautiful story. We must keep on learning.
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Cheryl Ryan
02/19/2024Superb memoir highlighting your life lessons. Narration was swift and engaging and I can relate to some of these life's lessons personally. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Help Us Understand What's Happening
Lillian Kazmierczak
05/01/2023Tom, you were not alone in what you learned in college! I told my kids get dirty in life, then go to college. Terrific story. As always well written!
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
Lillian Kazmierczak
02/21/2024Tom, I loved message this story held. Terrificly done. No surprise it is short story star of the week!
COMMENTS (6)