and Words
Babe, tomorrow’s so far away
There’s something I just have to say
I don’t think I could hide what I’m feelin’ inside
Another day, knowin’ I love you
And I, I’m getting too close again
I don’t wanna see it end
If I tell you tonight, would you turn out the lights
And walk away knowin’ I love you?
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
On a fall weekend morning in 1986, I pack my 1966 Mustang, my new-for-me car to the brim, but it still couldn’t contain all the things I needed. My family, my mom and sisters, packed the remainder of my belongings. Next, we embarked on a nearly hour-long trip down the coast to Coral Gables. I drove south on I-95, the familiar freeway that travels all the way up the East Coast, down to where it ends; it empties onto US-1. Finally, we arrive at our destination, a couple of blocks off US-1. I pull into the unfamiliar parking lot, lock the car, and walk to the front desk of Pearson Hall.
The desk bustled with chaotic activity; to this day, I don’t know how I got situated. I gave them my name and it started from there. The young people, likely other students, simply cross-referenced me in lists on clipboards. They efficiently found my dorm room, handed me a key, and gave me directions. My dorm room was in the 1R wing; it sat between the ground floor and the second floor, up half a flight of stairs.
I collected my keys and wandered to my dorm room with my family following closely. Next, I swung the door open apprehensively, the way that one might swing open the door to a hotel room. The difference was that this wouldn’t be my home for a day or two; this would be my home for the following year. We all shuffled in and examined the room. Meanwhile, we relaxed for a few moments before we started our next task, unloading the cars and getting everything into this tiny room.
Unloading the cars was its own ordeal. First, we borrow a cart from the front desk; it resembled a large basket with wheels. Next, we maneuver it back and forth between the parking lot and my dorm room. We lock the doors upon leaving the cars; this is Miami after all. Only one elevator opened to my floor, and we patiently waited for that particular one to open. Finally, after a number of trips, we empty the vehicles. After returning the borrowed cart, we settle back in and relax for a bit. I plug in my dorm fridge and unpack some clothes; unpacking the remainder of my things would take a little more planning.
The mattresses were little more than plastic wrapped pads of foam, as if they expected us to saturate them with bodily secretions from college life. We may move our desks and beds, but they bolted everything else down. That’s right, the bookshelves were literally bolted down. They hung from the wall from bolts that extruded by about a half inch. They required the bolts because the walls were solid cinder blocks. This isn’t an exaggeration, the outlines of each block as well as the cement that joined them were clearly visible, even over the number of layers of paint. The solid cement walls posed another complication, you could not pierce them with thumbtacks. It wasn’t perfect, but it was home.
After getting sufficiently settled, we took a break for dinner. We drove down US-1 to a Chinese restaurant, Canton, to get take-out food. After shuffling back into the car, we hauled the food back to my dorm room. We shared a meal one last time. It had been a full day, and they still needed to drive back to our home in Fort Lauderdale. They all collected their things and started their return.
The silence upon their leaving was stark and unexpected. Their absence left me with nothing to do; it was one of the loneliest moments in my life. This was the start of college life at University of Miami.
The week that followed preceded the start of classes. At the time, this sounded like I had adequate time to attend to everything; I barely did. No one in my family had ever attended college, nor had any close friends with whom I may consult. I was literally navigating blindly.
There was an ice breaker called Playfair for all the incoming freshmen on the intermural field; I’m astonished to find that this is still a thing. Later that night, I thumbed through the list of all the classes, still printed on paper and about half an inch thick.
I met with my advisor who insisted that I take Chemistry 101 despite getting a passing score on the AP test. Strangely, I don’t remember his name. Naturally, this led to getting registered for classes.
A number of returning students warned us about registration, that it had rendered some incoming freshmen to tears out of frustration. Specifically, the U was yet to be computerized for registration. Each class had limited seats, and each of those was represented by a punch card. Each school had a table in a large banquet hall. In order to get registered, you needed to approach each department and request a punch card for a particular class at a particular time.
If you were extraordinarily lucky, you were able to fill your class schedule by collecting your seats from a handful of departments on the first pass. All others, like me, were unable to get the classes that we wanted at the time that we wanted. This left us with split-second decisions about shifting a class to another time and going back to and getting an alternate time for a class you already got.
It felt like the trade floor at the stock market. All the classes ran out of seats in the time slots that I wanted. In fact, they ran out of seats in any combination of those classes. I met with an advisor where he approved my taking an elective this semester, and that would be Psychology 101. The ordeal was over, though I can easily understand how some new students may break down.
They converted to computerized registration a few semesters later. I spent the rest of that week tackling tasks like getting a parking permit and buying books. It all led to that first class, Chemistry 101 at 8am on Monday morning. That was a different type of sprint.
Boston’s Third Stage was a constant companion during that first semester. I still listened to mostly cassettes back then and had a case of them in my dorm room. “Amanda” was the first song on the album and their first single. I distinctly remember listening to it as I drove up to Pearson Hall. Likewise, I recall the acoustic guitar from the song blasting through my headphones as I navigated the stairs to that dorm room.
While it’s certainly a good song, I rarely listen to it. Similarly, I don’t remember it getting much airplay on the radio after that year. I don’t dislike the song, but it feels frozen in a cryogenic sleep. Strangely, this song has remained sentimentally linked to the start of college, and maybe that’s where I’d like to keep it.