“You’ll forget everything you learned in college,” he said, in between taking a drag, turning on his heel, walking and then repeating this like a smoking metronome. Smoke. Heel. Repeat.
“It is good for one thing, though.”
Pausing with my own cigarette, I looked up. This was a few years ago, weeks before the Democratic convention. The idea of journalism had a different paint job on it then, and college wasn’t simply an elusion giving way to an illusion for me yet. It was an answer; I thought it a good one.
Intrigued, I listened.
Now it’s now, and in a month I’ll graduate. And I’m scared shitless. No real plan. No real job. And I’m not even sure I want to pursue what I studied.
“College’ll teach you how much you can bite off and still chew,” he said.
I was interning at a small-town paper up north, and he, Russell, was the veteran reporter, and he looked the part. Gentle, a touch jaded, crow’s feet cupping blue eyes (the result of either smoking or thinking too much).
It would be some time later when I would get an e-mail from a friend informing me Russ had died alone in a car accident on a highway outside of town. Sometimes we keep people in moments, and for me, this is his: this talk, this summer, the taste of cigarettes.
“I don’t remember much of anything from it, but it did teach me how to put my time together. Organization. Understand?”
With a lie and a nod, I told him I did. He stamped his cigarette out and walked away.
Now it’s now, and in a month I’ll graduate. And I’m scared shitless. No real plan. No real job. And I’m not even sure I want to pursue what I studied.
They say before an earthquake, tsunami or whatever natural disaster hits, animals make for the hills. An instinct to avoid peril.
In recessions, I’ve learned, people turn tail for academia. All ages, all races, huddled together to weather the storm.
But I’m going out there to press my luck, and it has me thinking about that conversation years ago. I’m wondering what I will take away from Metro in addition to a piece of paper and a debt load that could cover a low-end Maserati.
Years from now I may forget the Spanish I’ve spent years learning, lord knows I’ve already forgotten the French. Math will assuredly be an afterthought, and Radiolab on NPR will be more helpful with any science questions than any lesson.
In the end old Russ was right. College takes that burning edge and focuses it a little, forcing you to stay up writing papers until dawn. It robs you of every minute of free time until you spend an hour with friends like you’ve got only that one left. It educates you in the art of not-giving-a-damn-this-Sunday-because-I-earned-it-and-I’m-not-taking-any-shit-for-it. College might teach you love; it might teach you passion for a movement; it could teach you a lot of things.
Metro never taught me what I wanted to do — I never took that credit. I’m not sure if I got any real answers, but now I think I know the right questions. And I’ll never forget that.
