Hangin’ Out at Adams State [revised]

I’m writing this from Colorado, sitting in the student center at Adams State College in Alamosa and having a wonderful time.

When we left Taos at 8:00 a.m. for the 90-mile drive up here — my wife is teaching advanced piano one day a week this semester — I checked the weather in Alamosa (always a good idea): eek, seven degrees! Right now in the early afternoon, it’s maybe 45 under clear skies without a breath of wind. The students are all walking around with what seems to be almost nothing on: shorts, cropped pants, T-shirts, flip-flops… and that’s one reason I’m having such a good time. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE! — and not a one of them knows or cares. Oh, the irony of life. I suppose if I were 19 again, I wouldn’t give a damn that some old geezer thought I was really cool, but I do. I really do.

I love the feeling of freedom in a place like this, where kids just out of high school get to dress any way they want. No one yelling at them to “Put on a JACKET, for Christ’s sake!” So refreshing to my tender psyche. I like the dreadlocks and the body piercings, too. [Hey, there goes a spiky-haired punk!] Hell, I like anything that’s not establishment. And they’d probably consider me “establishment,” although if I am, you’d better watch out. I’m sitting here, a good 45 years older than most freshmen, and I don’t want to leave. In fact, I almost have tears in my eyes. This is hard to explain, I know.Maybe it’s the underlying vitality of the species I’m picking up on. No matter how much we’ve fucked up this country and the planet, the kids just keep on coming. I LOVE YOU GUYS! And nobody knows…

(They won’t find out until they’re geezers, either. The comprehension must be paid for.)

It wasn’t necessarily like this back in Maryland in the ’90s. The small liberal-arts college where my wife taught for 27 years suggested a playpen for the trust-funded in comparison to a school like Adams State. I think that’s another thing that’s making me happy now, the sight of all those young people just being themselves, trying to get by. In Maryland I remember noticing how much some of the students looked and acted like their parents, and most drove better cars than their professors did. (Something tells me that isn’t the case here.) One of the things that used to rankle me about some parts of the East was the lordly sense of privilege associated with “good” schools, “good” families, and “good” neighborhoods, and the constant unspoken pressure and assumptions that went with it. There really isn’t that kind of attitude out here — not in this part of the West, at least. Society is more open, egalitarian, and democratic. (In Taos, at least, that’s partly because without mutual respect and tolerance, they’d be right back to kidnapping and slitting throats.) I generalize shamelessly, of course, and I doubt my wife would agree, except about the informality and egalitarianism of the West. That much is real, at least, and means a lot to me.

Meanwhile, the shadows lengthen here in the late November afternoon at the southern end of the San Luis Valley. The students walking past my table are for the most part scruffy, tough, sexy, multi-cultural, and relaxed. None of those things applied to me or my friends when i was their age, except perhaps the scruffy part. I conclude that the universe must have its own plan, and that things are moving along just fine.

We’ll be heading back around sunset. Bye-bye, Adams State, and GO GRIZZLIES!

I just love that mascot.

Related posts:

1. Commuting to Colorado
2. Planet Mud [revised]
3. Need House By August 1st!
4. Colorado Otra Vez [Revised & Updated]
5. Winter of ’08 [revised & updated]