Michael W. Pollard
Professor Frances Charteris
WRTG 3020 – 93
September 3, 2012
A Late Bloomer?
I’m not
sure why folks always said I was late bloomer. Maybe it was because I was
younger than all the other kids, and because my birthday falls around Labor
Day, I started school when I was four. Heck, I didn’t even get my driver’s
license until halfway through my senior year in high school. I grew three
inches and gained twenty pounds within six months of graduation – sure could
have used that extra size on the football field. I didn’t get married until
just shy of my 35th birthday but that may have been another story.
My buddy Stuart from high school
just sent me a picture of my mother and her best friend. I got a little misty
for a second as I lost her in 1997, and then I started thinking about what a
crush I had on her friend – what was her name, Sherry something. I think mom
would be proud of me now and I don't care what anyone says, it's exciting being
a college junior at my age. Some people might call it a midlife crisis but I
don't think so, I’m just plain tickled to death to have finally made it;
knowing what a journey it has been. I can't help being in a constant state of
reminiscence, another “auld lang syne” so to speak. Am I finally here or is
this just another one of my fantasies here to play tricks on my mind? Sometimes
I have to pinch myself to see if I am awake or not. For as long as I can
remember I've had a dream of attending a major university. I used to watch the
Buckeyes play football and tell my friends and family that I would be on that
team soon. Life happened instead and a
young man’s dreams were never realized.
Stuart and I decided that we wanted
to get out of that one horse town and since my family couldn't afford to send
me to college, I ended up serving my country instead, which was by far the most
enlightening experience I ever had. I often think of my comrades every time I
hear a certain patriotic song or see a recruiter handing out flyers. What would
wild Bill have to say about all this I wonder – wherever he is? He was my
roomie in Istanbul, Turkey and we got pretty close since we were fairly
confined on a remote outpost for a year. We stayed in touch for a little while
after we went to our next duty station but just lost track of each other after
a time. It was that way with just about all of my comrades. You meet so many
different people and say you will keep in touch but never do.
This time a year is special for me,
I can smell football season in the air and I can hear the faint sounds of the
crowds cheering in the distance. Oh, how I loved playing that game. I sometimes
wonder if my other classmates or my friends think I'm fickle for being here and
I keep second-guessing myself for taking such a leap of faith in myself. At
those moments though, I remind myself how long and lonely this road has been.
In some ways it feels like it's not at all what I expected, but in other ways
it's been everything and more.
For this student there are no
Friday night lights and TV interviews or fraternity memberships and dorm
parties. I get all choked up for not
having had the opportunity to experience these things back in the day but
there's a kind of peace in my having arrived at this place that I've held in my
dreams for so long. The beginning and the end are quite clear and major life
events stand out as well, but a lot of the in between seems kind of fuzzy and
overlapping. It could be like the little icon that I had pop up on my computer
screen a minute ago alerting me to the fact that a certain program was using a
little more memory than it was supposed to. I started thinking that our lives
may be that way. The older we get the more memories we have and need to store,
and maybe we can only file a certain amount of them before we start deleting or
editing out some of the less significant facts.
No matter, I'm here for the ride and I have a
deeper understanding for the world in which we live. I have been blessed with a
whole new list of firsts; I received my first scholarship after all my hard
work and I cried, I went to my first college football game and I cheered, I
received my first degree this year and I hung it on my wall. The saddest thing
in a life is to go to your grave with your dream still inside you. I'm living mine
here and now and although I'm still pretty athletic my bones are a little too
brittle to go out for the football team. I’ll just cheer from the sidelines
instead.
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