St. Paddy To The Rescue!

I went to a small college. I reckoned I would get lost in a big school. And David Paschall had said he’d take care of me if I came along with him.

First thing I noticed about the university was that it was hard. There weren’t no Polly Ruckers in the English department! Miss Polly took care of us in high school. If we didn’t understand or weren’t in the mood for Chaucer or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow……we’d get Buddy or Yogi to sweet talk her a little and she’d ease up a mite.

Those college professors didn’t play. And they expected you to know Chaucer, Shakespeare and Longfellow when you got there! They wanted to explore John Milton, Bryon, Keats and writers and sonnet makers that I’d never heard of! They spoke in rhymed meter and iambic pentameter. I had a class once where Dr. Binnicker was bound and determined that I was going to read Virgil’s “Aeneid” in the original Latin version. Folks, I didn’t have a chance. We didn’t talk in dactylic hexameter where I came from.

Baseball and lunch were my two best subjects.

I tried to choke the life out of Paschall the second week I was there.

Chap Wasson was a year a head of me. “It gets better. You’ve got to hang in there. Don’t let them intimidate you. Those profs will try to impress you with their knowledge and catch you up in that academic stuff. Just play along. You’ll be all right.”

Joe Galloway and I would go over to his room between classes and watch “Beverly Hillbillies” reruns. I couldn’t help but mull over the contrast.

By Thanksgiving I could find my way around the campus without getting lost. I even asked Dr. Webb a question about Frederick Jackson Turner in a history class one day. Tim Peters told me about New York City and John Stewart filled me in on Atlanta. I told them about Woodrow Kennon’s Grocery Store and the City Café.

You’d think I’d be fitting in by now. That was not the case. The days were lonely. The nights were long. Me and Cody Hays grubbed out an existence down in room 210 of Benedict Hall. Studying was hard. And my mind kept drifting back to high school where I knew everyone; it was safe, comfortable and friendly. I didn’t appreciate the warmth of our little hometown……until I was gone!

I didn’t think Christmas was ever going to come! It was like I escaped! Two glorious weeks at home! You’d better believe I soaked them in. I declared I wasn’t ever going back to the university. To heck with that! Dad quietly, but firmly, made me one of those offers I couldn’t refuse! It was eight below zero and the wind was blowing ninety miles an hour when I got back to the campus. I immediately found Paschall and went to choking him again! I slipped and slid across the ice to get to a humanities class that was too much “arts and letters” for my taste.

We didn’t thaw out till March!

Chap woke me up early on the 17^th, “Come’on, we’ve got to get moving.” I hurried into my pants, couldn’t find my jacket and was reaching for my Biology paper—“You won’t need that! There is no school for us today.”

Rusty Adcock had an old beat up Chevrolet. We eased off the mountain and stopped at a hardware store in Winchester. “How much money you got?” I handed over four dollars and some change…..which was all my cash at the time. They walked in that store like they owned the place, bought three gallons of green paint, a pack of fifty cent brushes and two rollers.

A light bulb came on. “Guys, it’s St. Patrick’s Day.” An astute university student can put things together like that. They laughed. I didn’t know much about what we were celebrating. Green was definitely not one of my favorite colors. I had never seen a Leprecon. Woodrow Kennon didn’t sell shamrocks. My Irish ancestors never talked about the parade in New York. And other than being pinched if we didn’t wear green, the day had never been all that special back home.

“March Madness” was about to take on a whole new meaning. It was a little after sundown when we pulled into Huntland. It was nothing more than a small train station, a few businesses and a couple of service stations. Rusty drove slowly through the dimly lit streets and eased the car around to the wooded side of an abandoned grain elevator. We slithered down a ditch behind the city hall and ended up in the hedge around some kind of monument. “Rus, pour a can in the fountain. Kes, you see how much you can roll on the side of the jail, I’m going for the water tower. We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes. If there is a problem, head for the car.”

I painted like a house a fire, with one eye on the street and ears alert for intruders. Precision was not important. Paint on the wall was the object! I was rolling it on with both hands when I heard the siren. My heart stopped. But not my legs! I threw the last paint toward the jail and leaped for the ditch. In the darkness someone passed me like I was sitting still. I could hear others behind, shouting.

Rusty pulled up on the gravel road and I dove in the car. We were debating leaving Chap when he leaped out of the bushes, half covered in green paint. I could only imagine how one exits a water tower in the pitch darkness on the dead run! We drove ten miles with the lights off and doubled back toward Elora and then cut through Beans Creek to escape any pursuers…..laughing all the way!

Finally, college was making a little sense to me.

Respectfully,

Kes