It's Wild Card Sunday!

I have a really bad memory.

As I said in my last Wild Card I’m going to start off by covering at least one question from each of the three categories before going completely chaotic and random. So this one will be from the final undiscussed category: Memories. Amazingly enough I ended up getting question number one! What's an ordinary place that feels extraordinary to you because of what happened there?

Funny thing- in my travels and whimventures® I’ve done a lot, but I also have discovered that my memory fails me many times. I think what I’ve learned is that when going places I tend to hide behind a camera or nowadays a phone. taking photos of things and focusing on images. Not focusing on the wonders or people around me. When I travel I tend to be anxious and that anxiety does shade my memories of a place. So the question is about an ordinary place that feels extraordinary because of what happened there. It doesn’t seem to be focused on a historical event but something more personal. For that I think I need to go back to my days at University.

I was never this young… or at least I don’t remember ever being this young.

I attended a small liberal arts college in Indiana. I grew up in up in California, although my family roots (on my mother’s side) are deeply Hoosier. This choice of colleges upset my mother who wanted me closer to home. Many people complain about how kids become different when they go to college and embrace strange “woke” ideas 🙄 they don’t understand that college is the first time a child gets to truly be independent and no longer has their parents guiding them. Yes, this was in the mid 80’s before the concept of “Helicopter” or “Snowplow” Parenting, but I can say my mother did a good job of trying to be cutting edge… but she stopped when I got to college. In fact she never set foot in the state of Indiana until my graduation which, I was told, was only because she couldn’t get a refund on the plane tickets. This is not that story. This is about the basement of my fraternity house.

Yes, I was in a fraternity. Those who know me would question this, since I do not look like a typical fraternity member. Then again my fraternity was anything but normal. Not an Animal House, not a Revenge of the Nerds. I always like to look at it as a vinyl record where the hole was punched about an inch off center. We had those guys that wanted it to be a regular frat house, pool-sci, business, majors. We had a few jocks. We had people who were in musical theatre and we had me… an elementary education major. It was Valentine’s Day we’d just held elections and our new social chairman put out a call to have an informal party- invite everyone and have fun. Me… I don’t think I invited anyone. I just showed up and in the basement that dark, messy, place with cheap beer spilled on the dance floor became extraordinary.

You see, I was a sophomore and a lot of the people I was friends with were freshmen. They hung out at one of the girl’s dorms and I would stop by to talk with a friend who was the RA for one of the floors. OK, I may have invited her, or at least let her know about the party. That said for the past two weeks I’d hung around and got to know a few people and even though I had just been dumped before Christmas Break, I was starting to consider the possibility of a future relationship. I didn’t know who or when, but I thought maybe it was time to try again. I think you see where this is going.

That night on the dance floor (I don’t dance) I noticed one girl was dancing and staying around me. I’d run up to my room, she’d follow me. Late in the evening my friend told me in the best elementary school manner 🎶“I know someone likes you.”🎶 Being clueless, it took me a bit and then I went “huh?” She laughed and said it was funny because we were so different, “opposites” she had said. I replied, finally putting two and two together that “opposites attract.” This was a girl from the dorm who I’d been talking with for the last couple of weeks, not trying to show off, just being me. This was the same girl who had been following me throughout the evening. Then that ordinary place became extraordinary. We spent the rest of the night dancing and talking. A group of us walked a group of girls back to their dorm and we sat, still talking and finally, as we were about to leave, we kissed.

Almost 40 years later and I’m still with that girl. That fraternity house has been converted into apartments. We drive by it whenever we happen to drive through the campus, which is rarely. That place, that moment in time changed my life, made me realize that if I’m just myself and not trying to impress, that people will “like” me for just being me. Every time I look over at Sue, I’m reminded of that.

As Jack Kent said in Just Only John (One of my favorite books): be yourself, because somebody has to, and you're the closest.

This is based on the Wild Card podcast by Rachel Martin on NPR. Thanks for the inspiration.