If this is your first time here on Don’t Let The Days Go By, welcome. DLTDGB is a continuing story set in 1998 (currently), about a university student making his way in life. I am currently on hiatus from writing; the story will continue eventually at some unspecified time. This break is taking a lot longer than I expected; real life in 2024 is kind of overwhelming right now. Today’s post is a recap of the highlights of year 4.
(Also, in case you need it, click here for the recaps of year 1, year 2, and year 3.)
If you are new to DLTDGB and want the complete story, start by clicking here for Episode 1, and then click Next at the end of each episode.
I was not in Jeromeville or at my parents’ house for most of the summer of 1997. I was hundreds of miles away, doing a math research internship in Oregon. I applied to this program on the suggestion of Dr. Thomas, one of my favorite professors.
I met the other students in the program, found a church, and borrowed a bicycle so I could get around. I did not have a lot in common with the other students in the program, other than mathematics itself, but I did my share of social activities with them.
I got to see my great-aunt and uncle a few times that summer; they lived not too far from me in Oregon. My parents came to see me and other Oregon relatives one weekend. I missed home terribly, but I made the most of my time in Oregon. The most life-changing thing that happened during that summer was the realization that I did not want to do mathematics research as a career.
After a couple weeks at my parents’ house, I returned to Jeromeville and moved into a house with Josh McGraw, Sean Richards, and Sam Hoffman. Josh had been my roommate the previous year as well. I went to two retreats back-to-back just before school started, one for Jeromeville Christian Fellowship and one for the youth leaders at Jeromeville Covenant Church.
I did chorus again that fall, and we performed at a ceremony for the renaming of a building on campus. My future plans also solidified at the start of that school year. With math research off the table, I put all my efforts into becoming a teacher, and I figured out that I would be able to graduate on time in June. I made a silly movie, based on my Dog Crap & Vince stories, with the kids from the youth group at church.
I did a lot of things with the youth group at J-Cov that year. Some of the leaders pulled a memorable prank on the kids, toilet-papering seventeen kids’ houses on the same night. We also took a nine-hour road trip to San Diego for the National Youth Workers’ Convention. I saw a lot of Christian bands play there. Although most of my experiences at J-Cov over the years were positive, I saw a darker side when someone I knew there began harassing and almost stalking me. He eventually had his church membership revoked; I was not the only one whom he had done this to.
I had my eye on a few girls that year. Carrie Valentine was two years behind me; I knew her from JCF. She was nice, and she was easy to talk to. I finally got brave and spoke up, and things did not turn out as I had hoped.
Over winter break, I made another movie with my brother and his friends, and I took a trip to my old roommate Brian Burr’s New Year party, where I got to see some of our older friends who had graduated. When I returned to school for the new quarter, I interned in a high school classroom, to get more experience to prepare for my future career as a teacher. I had recently discovered how much I loved In-N-Out Burger, and a location opened in Jeromeville that quarter. I was there on the day it opened.
That winter, I went to Winter Camp with the youth group kids. I started spending my Sunday nights at the De Anza house, where the guys hosted weekly watch parties for The X-Files. That was already one of my favorite shows, and now I got to enjoy it with a large group of friends.
Sadie Rowland was another girl I was interested in at the time. She was, like Carrie, two years younger than me, and she went to JCF. She was the kind of girl whom I could sit there and talk to for hours, and it would feel like no time had passed at all. She was preparing to leave the area for six months to do an internship, and we made plans to see a certain movie that was popular at the time. The plans fell through, I never saw the movie, and Sadie for the most part disappeared out of my life.
The University of Jeromeville men’s basketball team won the national championship for their level, one of the greatest accomplishments in Jeromeville Colts history. Spring quarter started with an unexpected surprise: Carrie Valentine was in two of my classes, despite being in a major very different from mine. I was able to let go of any lingering awkwardness, and we got to be friends again. Besides, a new girl had caught my eye: Sasha Travis from church, even though she was only seventeen.
With Josh and Sam planning to move out over the summer, I managed to find two new roommates to move in with Sean and me for the following year: Brody, another youth leader from church, and Jed, a freshman from JCF who would be moving out of the dorm at the end of the year. JCF had a spring retreat that year. Taylor, Pete, and Noah, who had been more involved with church than JCF the last few years, all went on the retreat, knowing it would be their last JCF retreat.
I did a lot of creative writing that year, and I took a Fiction Writing class that quarter. We had a project to write a story and share a copy with everyone in the class. I wrote a story about an awkward guy and a girl he liked, inspired by Sasha. It was the first time I had ever shared my writing with an audience of people who did not know me well, and the experience was humbling.
A lot of other things happened that year. My parents came to the Spring Picnic, and I decided that I enjoyed it better without them. Noah and Taylor taught me to play Catan. I was inducted as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. I shared my testimony at JCF’s senior night, wearing a shirt with Brent Wang’s face on it. I came in second at the Man of Steel competition, my best finish ever. And I made a board game based on Dog Crap and Vince. But the most important thing that happened was graduation. I was finished with my Bachelor of Science degree, and ready to start the teacher training program next year.
“Your gown is still in the package?” Mom exclaimed incredulously. “It’s gonna be all wrinkled!”
“I don’t know!” I replied loudly. “I don’t think about these things! I’m a guy!”
“Well, when you’re a teacher, you’ll have to dress nicely, and that means ironing your clothes so they aren’t wrinkled.”
“That doesn’t help me right now,” I said.
“I have an iron,” my roommate Sean said, sitting on the couch and overhearing our conversation. “Would that help?”
“Yes,” Mom replied. We had about half an hour until I had to assemble for my graduation ceremony. Mom, Dad, and my sixteen-year-old brother Mark had driven up from Plumdale yesterday, arriving in the early evening. They stayed at a motel in Woodville, about ten miles from my house, on the assumption that it would be difficult to find a room in Jeromeville the weekend of graduation. Mom put a bed sheet on the dining room table, since there was no ironing board, and got most of the wrinkles out of my gown using Sean’s iron.
Graduation day at the University of Jeromeville was more accurately graduation weekend. The university held five different graduation ceremonies in the Recreation Pavilion, divided by major, with additional separate ceremonies for graduate students and the various professional schools such as medicine, law, and veterinary medicine. A month or so ago, I had sent an email to my old roommate Brian Burr, who was now on the other side of the country, finishing his first year at New York Medical College. I mentioned my upcoming graduation, and he said to sneak in a Game Boy, because the ceremony was long and boring. I had my Game Boy at the house, but it felt disrespectful to sit there playing video games during the most important celebration of my educational career.
After I put on my cap and freshly ironed gown, we all got in the car, and Dad drove the mile south to campus. The Campus Parking Services department charged full price to park on campus for graduation, which felt like a massive ripoff to me, but graduation was not an everyday occurrence, so I would just suck it up and deal with it this time. After all, back in 1998, full price was only three dollars, and Mom and Dad were paying.
“I’m supposed to go over there,” I said, pointing to the opposite side of the building from where we were. I then pointed toward the main entrance and continued, “You get in over there.”
“Okay,” Mom replied. “We’ll see you afterward.” Mom hugged me.
“Congratulations,” Dad said, shaking my hand. “Dad loves you.”
“You too,” I replied. Mom, Dad, and Mark walked toward the main entrance, and I walked to the other side of the building. I saw a few people I know, and I said hi and congratulated them. The informational packet I received a few weeks ago told me to assemble on the south side of the building by 9:45. I looked at my watch; I was right on time, but after finding my assigned position, I stood there for almost half an hour before the line of graduates began moving forward. By then, my feet were starting to hurt.
I walked into the Pavilion and looked around. I was walking on what was usually the basketball court, but it had been covered with over a thousand folding chairs. The highest level of seating, collapsible bleachers which I had only seen in use during a few heavily attended basketball games, were filled to capacity with family and friends of graduates, as were all the lower levels of seating. Including the graduates on the floor, there were probably at least ten thousand people in the building. I had no idea where Mom, Dad, and Mark were, and it was hopeless trying to find them. I stood at my seat on the floor, as I had been instructed to, listening to the marching band play Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. They repeated the same section from that piece over and over and over again, as was tradition at graduation ceremonies, as all of the graduates filed in.
Next, some official-looking person in a suit whom I did not recognize walked up to the stage and told us to be seated. I took a deep breath. My feet hurt. This was going to be a long day. I fidgeted in my seat, trying to get comfortable. The man in the suit introduced himself as the Dean of Something-or-other, and he took several minutes to welcome us all to the ceremony, using big words to make himself sound good.
Two more bigwigs from the university administration spoke next. I continued fidgeting in my seat, trying hard not to fall asleep as the speaker droned on and on about the challenges we would face in the future. Her speech was saturated with left-wing buzzwords about the environment and cultural diversity. The next speaker was even more boring; halfway through his speech, I had really wished that I had followed Brian Burr’s advice to bring a Game Boy.
The valedictorian, a girl named T’Pring Miller who double majored in physics and English, spoke next. A few weeks ago, I had received a large envelope in the mail with information about the graduation ceremonies, and when I saw the name T’Pring Miller listed on the program, I wondered what language her first name was from. Years later, I would learn that the name T’Pring came from Star Trek. I tended to dislike the idea of naming children things based on popular culture, and I hoped that any future children I had would have more traditional names. Popular culture changes so often that names like this lose their meaning. I wondered if T’Pring Miller was ever teased about her name growing up, and if that was what drove her to choose such a challenging educational path, double-majoring in two unrelated subjects.
I was bored. T’Pring Miller was speaking about the challenges she had to overcome in life, but she did not mention her unusual name as one of the challenges. I was sure that she had a lot of interesting things to say, but I found myself starting to nod off. I sat up and started wiggling my feet up and down, trying to stay awake. I did not want to be disrespectful, but I was tired of sitting. I was ready to walk across the stage and receive my prop diploma. I knew that my actual diploma would arrive in the mail several months later, but this was not publicly announced to everyone watching.
After what seemed like an eternity, the dean who spoke at the beginning announced that it was time to receive our diplomas. In the sea of graduates, I was slightly behind the middle, so my turn would not come for a while. In addition to being uncomfortable and bored, now I also had to pee. I could see the end in sight, though, as people sitting near the front were gradually moving forward to receive their prop diplomas.
I wondered if Mom and Dad and all of the parents and family members in the audience were as bored as I was. Mark was probably complaining by now. I knew some people who were graduating this year but skipping the ceremony entirely. At first I did not understand why people would not want to celebrate their momentous accomplishments, but now, after seeing how long and boring the ceremony was, I understood. I finally reached the stage, after waiting for hundreds of people in front of me. I shook hands with the dean, and someone else handed me a folder that was blank on the inside. Someone took a photograph of me, which I could buy for an additional fee if I wanted to.
I returned to my seat and waited for the rest of the graduates to walk across the stage. Finally, almost three hours after the ceremony began, the time came for us to turn our tassels to the other side of our caps, to show that we had graduated. We then filed out of the Pavilion one row at a time while the marching band played the school alma mater song, the same one I sang with University Chorus at the Waite Hall dedication ceremony last October. As soon as I was out of sight of the audience, I headed straight for the nearest bathroom.
To the south, between the Pavilion and Davis Drive, was a large lawn, used during the year for intramural sports. This was where we had assembled a few hours ago before we filed in. My parents and I had the foresight to pick a general direction to meet after the ceremony, so that we would not get lost in the giant crowd. When I got there, I spotted a couple of other people I knew and said hi: old classmates, people from Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, and one guy from my freshman dorm. I eventually found Mom and Dad right where I told them to be.
“Congratulations,” Mom said, giving me a hug. Dad shook my hand, and so did Mark.
“That was long,” I said.
“I know,” Mom replied. “But graduations are always like that.”
“So where are we going next?” Dad asked.
“A reception for the math department, in the West Barn. I’ve actually never been inside the West Barn.”
“And you said you’re getting an award or something?”
“Yes.”
“Can we walk there from here?” Mom asked.
“Sure. It’s not too far. Are we ready? I’d like to get away from these crowds.”
The four of us walked across the lawn and turned east on Davis Drive, toward the core campus. We passed the turn that led to the South Residential Area, where I lived freshman year. We continued walking past a brand new science laboratory building on the left and several small buildings on the right. These so-called temporary buildings were permanent enough to have been there for a few decades. I then led my parents across the street to the Barn, the student union on this end of campus that was inside what was once an actual barn. We crossed through the building and exited to a courtyard on the other side of the building, away from the street.
The West Barn Café and Pub, on the west side of this courtyard, was a fancy restaurant that could be reserved for receptions and other formal dinners and luncheons, such as this one for the graduating mathematics students. It was well-known as the only place on campus where alcohol was served, although none would be at this function. I had never had a reason to go here, so this building was entirely new to me. I saw an outdoor patio with tables and umbrellas to my left as I entered the building, with my parents behind me.
“Hi,” someone I did not know, apparently a student assistant, said from behind a table full of programs and name tags. “What’s your name?”
“Greg Dennison,” I said.
The student assistant handed me a program and my name tag. “Welcome, Greg,” she said. “Take a seat anywhere.”
I turned around and asked the rest of the family, “Where do you want to sit?”
“Wherever,” Mom replied. Dad and Mark seemed equally noncommittal.
I walked to a table near the middle of the room that had four empty seats together. Jack Chalmers and his parents were at the table next to us. Jack leaned over and said, “Hey, Greg. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “You too. Mom, Dad, this is Jack. We’ve had a bunch of classes together over the years.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mom replied. She and Dad both shook Jack’s hand.
“Greg, these are my parents,” Jack said, gesturing toward the people sitting with him.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking Jack’s mother’s and father’s hands, one at a time.
“Are you the Greg that’s getting this award?” Jack’s mother asked. I looked on her program where she was pointing; it read Department Citation – Gregory Dennison.
“Yes, that’s me,” I answered, smiling.
“Congratulations,” Jack’s mother said.
I turned back with Mom and Dad as more people filed into the building. Mom asked if I knew anyone. “Of course I know people,” I replied. “I’ve had classes with them.”
Dr. Alterman, the department chair who had taught my Number Theory class the previous fall, called the reception to order. He pointed out the food line, where we would be served out of trays by restaurant employees. We all lined up for food, and I got chicken, pasta salad, regular salad, and buttered bread. I returned back to my seat and looked around the room to see who else was here. I recognized a lot of faces of other mathematics majors who had been in classes with me, and I knew some of their names. Katy Hadley, the cute redhead, was there, but I did not know her particularly well, and she was never all that friendly, so I did not go out of my way to speak to her. Alan Jordan sat across the room; the first thing I always noticed about him was that he resembled the actor Norm MacDonald, not only physically but also in his deadpan voice. Andrea Wright sat with her husband, as well as other family. Andrea was my first crush at UJ, when her name was Andrea Briggs, and I was disappointed to meet her boyfriend a few months later. They got married last summer. Sarah Winters, one of my best friends for our entire four years at UJ, was here with her mother. I knew that her parents were no longer together, and I did not know whether or not her father was at graduation. I did not know how that kind of family dynamic worked, and it was none of my business.
Dr. Alterman spoke for several minutes on the importance of mathematics in a connected society. He used many trendy buzzwords that had arisen in the past few years with the emergence of the Internet into the mainstream, such as “information superhighway.” Dr. Thomas, a woman of around forty who was one of my favorite professors, spoke after Dr. Alterman. “Next,” she said, “I would like to present this year’s Department Citation.”
That’s me, I thought, suddenly a little bit nervous.
“This award goes to the undergraduate mathematics major with the highest grade point average in mathematics classes. This student had straight As in all math classes. I had the pleasure of teaching this student two years ago in Combinatorics,” Dr. Thomas said, “and he was one of the top students in the class. I also know him from my work with the Math Club, and I have seen him grow and explore different futures in mathematics as he continues to perform at a high level in the classroom. The recipient of the 1998 Department Citation in Mathematics is Gregory Dennison.”
Everyone applauded as I walked to the front of the room. Dr. Thomas shook my hand and handed me a certificate. “Thank you,” I said.
“Next year,” Dr. Thomas continued, “Greg will be right here at the University of Jeromeville, in the teacher certification program. When a student of Greg’s caliber chooses a career in education, our young people have a bright future ahead.”
I smiled as I walked back toward my seat. I felt humbled that Dr. Thomas believed so much in my ability to be a great teacher. Dr. Thomas had once encouraged me to pursue mathematics research. She was planning to start a summer research internship at UJ, and she encouraged me to apply to similar programs elsewhere; this was how I ended up in Oregon last summer doing math research. Sometimes I wondered if Dr. Thomas was disappointed that I did not choose research as a career, but today it certainly did not sound like it. I sat back down next to Mom, Dad, and Mark; Mom looked at me, smiling proudly.
The other professors at this event took turns announcing recipients of other awards, and recognizing students who had been accepted to particularly prestigious graduate schools. I sat and listened and applauded politely. This was more interesting than the graduation ceremony in the Pavilion, since I knew some of these people and recognized most of their faces. In the past, I would have been envious of these students and the fancy letters that they would have after their names in a few years. But at this point, I was okay with the path I was on. I had received my award, and after the events of the last two school years, I now knew that I enjoyed teaching much more than mathematical research.
After the individual awards, Dr. Alterman read the names of all of the mathematics graduates as we all stood up to be recognized collectively. He then gave a brief concluding speech and congratulated us all once again. When it was clear that the event was over and people were getting out of their seats, I got up to find Sarah. Alan found me first. “Hey, Greg,” he said as he walked by. “Congratulations on the award.”
“Thanks. Alan, this is my mom, dad, and Mark, my brother.” I turned to my family and said, “This is Alan. He’ll be in the student teaching program next year too.”
“Nice to meet you,” Alan said. He continued walking toward wherever he was going, and I continued walking toward Sarah.
“Greg!” Sarah exclaimed, giving me a hug. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you,” I replied. “You too.” Sarah introduced me to her mother, and I introduced Sarah and her mother to my family, as I had already done several other times today. “Sarah lived downstairs from me in C Building,” I explained to my family. “And I know her from JCF and church.”
“Oh, yeah,” Mom replied. “I’ve heard Greg talk about you.”
“Next year,” I explained, “Sarah is moving back home to Ralstonville, to do the student teaching program at Ralstonville State. Is that right?” I asked, turning back to Sarah.
“Yes,” she said. “But I’ll be up here visiting a few times.”
“Good. Will you be at church tomorrow?”
“Yeah! I’ll see you then.”
After the reception, the four of us walked back toward the car. As soon as we were out of earshot of others, Mark said in his usual exaggerated, sarcastic tone, “I didn’t know you went to school with Norm MacDonald!”
“I know,” I replied. “I noticed that right away when I first met Alan a couple years ago.”
We drove back to the house, and Mom, Dad, and Mark said their goodbyes and left for Plumdale about an hour later. Later in the summer, I would be back in Plumdale for a week, although I had not decided on the exact dates yet.
I went back to my room to check my email. I did not feel all that different now that I was a graduate of the University of Jeromeville. And my life would not look that different over the summer. I would continue volunteering with the youth group at church and going to Bible study. I planned on going for bike rides around Jeromeville while the weather was warm and dry. I also had some special events this summer, including Scott and Amelia’s wedding a week from now and Josh and Abby’s wedding in August.
My life had changed so much in the last four years. When I graduated from Plumdale High School, I was excited to get out of Santa Lucia County and make a new start somewhere else, because I was tired of the same old thing and ready for something different. But I did not know what my future would look like. Today, though, life was beginning to take shape. And instead of being excited to get away, I was ready to stay in Jeromeville for a long time. Through the influence of friends, including Sarah, I had learned over the last few years what it really meant to follow Jesus Christ. I had become more involved in church, which gave me a sense of community here. And I had a plan for my future: I was going to teach high school mathematics. I would be good at it, according to Dr. Thomas. My Christian values felt out of place at times in a university town like Jeromeville, but Jeromeville was now my home, and I hoped to stay here and raise a family here someday. Of course, as is often the case, my future did not end up looking like that at all. But at that moment, I had a plan, and I was ready for what came next.
I’ll be taking a few months off before I start season 5. I need time to plan too (in writer lingo, I’m a plotter, not a pantser). But I will post on here a few times; I need to do a summary of the year at some point, and I may have a few other things to say.
Tell me anything you want in the comments. Anything at all.
If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.
“Hey, Greg,” John said, opening his front door. “What’s up?”
“I’m done,” I replied. “That’s about all I’ve been thinking about since yesterday. I’m done with finals. I’m done with my bachelor’s degree. It feels kind of weird.”
“I bet it does. Congratulations.”
“You said you have one more quarter?” I asked.
“Two more. I’ll be finished in March. How’d finals go?”
“I think I did pretty well. What about yours?”
“I did well enough. Let’s just say that.”
“Hey, John?” I heard Eddie Baker’s voice call from the kitchen.
“Just a minute,” John said. “I’ll be right back.”
I looked around the living room of the De Anza house, as my friends called it because it was located on De Anza Drive. I had been here many times over the last few months. We had our weekly watch parties for new episodes of The X-Files here until a month ago, when the show went into reruns for the summer. Since then, I had also been here for the Man of Steel competition and the senior banquet for Jeromeville Christian Fellowship. John and Eddie lived here with four other guys, all of whom were well-connected in the JCF social circles, and things always seemed a little hectic and noisy at the De Anza house whenever I had been here.
Most episodes of The X-Files were standalone stories, but there were also recurring storylines that so far had continued through the series’ five-year run. As was usually the case, the recent season finale of The X-Files closed with a cliffhanger, setting up the events of next year’s season. But this time, fans had something else to look forward to, a feature film in theaters called The X-Files: Fight The Future. With everything in my life for the last week revolving around final exams, which were now finished, and my upcoming graduation, which was just a day away, going with a group of friends to watch a movie seemed a bit out of place. But it was important that I still live my life, even with this major event on the horizon.
I was running a little late that morning. Most people had already arrived, and there were about twice as many guys as girls. The girls seemed to be clustered on the couch. Tabitha Sasaki, who was Eddie’s girlfriend, sat next to two freshman girls, Chelsea Robbins and another one whom I recognized. “Hey,” I said, walking over to them.
“Greg!” Tabitha said. “Congratulations! Finals are over!”
“Do you know Morgan?” Chelsea asked, gesturing toward the other girl on the couch.
“I’ve seen you around,” I said as Morgan shook my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too!” Morgan replied. Morgan was of average height, taller than Chelsea, with light brown hair and glasses.
“How did finals go?” Chelsea asked me.
“Pretty well, I think.”
“You’re graduating, but you’ll still be in Jeromeville next year, right?”
“Yeah. Student teaching.”
“What are you gonna teach?” Morgan asked.
“High school math.”
“Eww. I hated math.”
“Hopefully my students won’t say that.”
“Yeah, I had a lot of math teachers who weren’t very good,” Morgan explained.
I heard Eddie’s voice again as he walked out into the living room. “Raise your hand if you can drive,” he said. I raised my hand, and Eddie began asking people how many could fit in our cars. When he got to me, I said, “Four, plus me.”
Eddie appeared to be counting people and figuring in his head. “How about this? Myself, Lars, Morgan, and Greg will drive. That’ll be enough to get us all there. Everyone else, pick a driver to go with. We’ll leave in five minutes.”
People walked around the room coalescing around the four drivers. “Do you have room in your car for us?” Dave McAllen asked, approaching me with his wife, Janet. Dave and Janet were the head staff for Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, several years older than the rest of us.
“Sure,” I said. John joined us a minute later, followed by Colin Bowman, a sophomore who would be the co-leader of the Bible study I was going to be in next year. The five of us walked out to my red Ford Bronco, parked on the street in front of the house.
“Everyone knows how to get there, right?” Eddie called out as we headed to the cars. “Let’s all meet outside the theater. See you there!”
I got into the driver’s seat and unlocked the door, tilting the passenger seat forward so that people could get in the back. John took the front seat. “So are you guys excited for this movie?” he asked.
“Yes!” I replied.
“I want to know what happened to the mind-reading kid,” Dave said as I pulled away from the house and headed toward Coventry Boulevard. The season finale of the TV series featured a preteen chess prodigy who had the power to read minds, because he had been genetically engineered with genes from both normal humans and aliens. “How exactly does having alien DNA make you read minds?” Dave continued.
“We’ll just have to find out,” Janet replied.
“I want to know more about that creepy black stuff in people’s eyes,” John said.
“Creepy black stuff?” Janet asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That alien black oil stuff that infects people.”
“I missed that.”
“I don’t know everything about it,” I said. “I missed a lot of season 3 and part of season 4, because the show used to come on Fridays, and that was when I started going to JCF on Fridays.”
“Oh, yeah,” John said. “I forgot it used to be Fridays.”
We continued discussing The X-Files as I turned south on G Street toward downtown. I zigzagged to Cornell Boulevard, drove under the notoriously narrow railroad underpass and past Murder Burger and the new In-N-Out Burger, and turned onto Highway 100 eastbound toward Capital City. At that time, Jeromeville had only one six-screen movie theater and one older single-screen theater. It would be difficult to get tickets for a group of twenty people for the first showing on opening day of the X-Files movie, so Eddie and John decided instead to get advance tickets to see the movie in Capital City. Capital City, in the next county to the east across the Capital River, was much larger, with many large movie theaters spread out across the city and its suburbs. I crossed the river about ten miles after leaving Jeromeville, with the historic drawbridge visible about half a mile north of the modern freeway crossing. I drove through downtown and then got onto another freeway headed northeast, toward Capital East Mall, a familiar destination to me. My first time at that mall, freshman year, I had begun to have an emotional breakdown, running an errand as a favor to my mother that was not as easy as I expected it to be. I had been there many times just to buy clothes, since Jeromeville’s anti-corporate City Council had successfully kept department stores out of Jeromeville. Twice, I had been there with a group as temporary workers to do inventory for one of the large stores, to raise money for JCF. One of those times I was paired with an attractive young female store employee, whom I never saw again. My mind drifted to her, wondering what she was up to these days.
The movie theater was a detached building in the same parking lot as the mall. I parked and walked with the others in my car to the front of the theater, where Eddie and his passengers were already waiting. Lars and Morgan and their passengers each arrived separately within the next ten minutes.
“Do you have the tickets?” Lars asked Eddie.
“Yes,” Eddie replied, handing each of us a ticket. We all walked inside, and after using the bathroom, I waited as some people bought snacks.
As the movie began, the title credits appeared over a graphic effect meant to look like black liquid. Apparently the creepy black stuff that we had discussed earlier would figure in this plot. The scene quickly transitioned to two prehistoric Ice Age humans being attacked by a fierce otherworldly creature. One of them stabbed the creature; as the creature bled, its black blood began flowing into the man, as if the blood was sentient. The scene then transitioned to the present day, where some boys playing outside discovered the skull of the prehistoric man and promptly became infected by the black alien blood. This was going to be interesting, I thought. Hopefully I would be able to follow the story, since I had missed some of the previous episodes about the black liquid. Or maybe this one scene was enough to explain the origin of the black liquid sufficiently enough to follow the movie.
The series’ main characters, Mulder and Scully, first appeared in the next scene, with Scully trying to think rationally about their assignment and Mulder rambling philosophically. Even though I was sitting in a movie theater watching a big screen feature film, this felt just like a typical episode of The X-Files. The next several scenes also stayed faithful to many the series’ core themes: black helicopters, government cover-ups, and Mulder and Scully’s superiors getting on their case. The scene shifted back to where the boy found the black alien goo, and many in the theater gasped when the Smoking Man, a recurring villain from the series, first appeared. Watching a movie with a large group of fans, having that collective experience of seeing things on the big screen for the first time, was a new experience for me, but I loved it.
About midway through the movie, Mulder and Scully discovered a top secret facility involving corn fields and millions of bees. They barely escaped the facility, but one of the bees hitched a ride on Scully’s clothes and stung her several hours later. Scully began describing her symptoms in detail as she lost consciousness.
“No one is really gonna say all that as they’re fainting,” Lars whispered from somewhere near me.
“She’s a doctor,” I replied. “She might. It’s her area of expertise.”
Instead of regular paramedics in an ambulance, mysterious agents took Scully away and attempted to shoot Mulder. Mulder woke up in the hospital, surrounded by his three weird friends, who were also recurring characters on the show. I clapped at their appearance, and I heard a few other people start to clap after I did, but the rest of the theater did not seem as excited to see these three as I was.
On the screen, Mulder encountered a man with a British accent. I recognized him; he had worked with the Smoking Man and the others behind the conspiracy in several episodes of the series. Now he was betraying the others and helping Mulder, apparently disapproving of the conspirators’ plans to create human-alien hybrids to resist the alien colonization. He said that Mulder’s father, who had connections to these people, had hoped that Mulder would fight the future.
Fight the future. That was from the movie’s title. Nice.
On the screen, Mulder traveled to Antarctica, acting on information given to him by the British man, to break into a facility operated by the conspirators. Mulder rescued Scully in the end, as I expected since I knew that the television series would be continuing. But the final scene implied that the conspirators had other facilities elsewhere, including one whose location was given by onscreen text as “Foum Tataouine, Tunisia.”
“Dude! That says ‘Tatooine!’” Lars whispered loudly, referring to the similarly named home planet of Luke Skywalker from Star Wars.
I did not like whispering in movie theaters, but Lars happened to point out something related to a tidbit of knowledge that I knew. “That’s where that part of Star Wars was filmed,” I whispered back. “The planet Tatooine was named after a city in Tunisia.” I was impressed with myself for having gathered much knowledge of Star Wars in the last year and a half, since my old roommate Brian Burr had made me a fan and brought me to the films’ theatrical re-releases.
The screen faded to black, and the credits played over the song “Walking After You” by the Foo Fighters, the song from the movie soundtrack that had been released as a radio single. After the credits ended, we all walked into the lobby, sharing our thoughts about the movie. “So I have a question,” John said. “When Mulder got to Antarctica, I was thinking about the midnight sun and all that kind of stuff. And I realized something.”
“Oh yeah?” Tabitha replied.
“It looked like it was summer in America, like in the beginning of the movie when the boys found the skull. It looked hot and sunny outside. But if it’s summer here, then it’s winter in Antarctica. So shouldn’t it have been dark?”
“Dude, you’re right!” Lars exclaimed. I thought about this; he was right. This seemed like the kind of thing I should have noticed.
“Maybe it was a hot day in the fall, or the spring,” I suggested. “Then it wouldn’t have been completely dark in Antarctica.”
“Or maybe you’re just making excuses,” John teased.
“Now this is going to bother me,” I said.
“Dos Amigos is right next door,” Dan said, gesturing in the direction of Dos Amigos. “You guys want to get lunch?”
“Yes!” I shouted. It had now been over seven hours since I had my small bowl of Cheerios in the morning, and I had not snacked during the movie. Others seemed in favor of this idea as well.
The original Dos Amigos restaurant was a quarter-mile from my house in Jeromeville; this one in Capital City was the second location, and the menu said that there was a third location in Blue Oaks. Dos Amigos served Santa Fe style Mexican food, different from most other Mexican restaurants here in the western United States. I had been to the Jeromeville Dos Amigos several times, and this one was clearly a different building with a different layout, but the decor was similar. The walls were painted in the Southwestern adobe style, and decorative strings of dried chiles hung from wooden beams painted turquoise. I ordered the same thing I had gotten before in Jeromeville, the Southwest Chicken Burrito.
“So what’d you think of the movie, Greg?” Dave McAllen asked.
“I loved it,” I replied. “Even if it did just leave me with more questions than answers.”
“Of course they’re gonna do that, though,” John said. “The series is still going.”
“I heard once that the show was going to end after this season, and they would just make movies after this,” Chelsea said.
“I heard that too,” Eddie replied. “But then they decided to keep the show going instead. Probably because it was getting high ratings.”
“Makes sense,” I said. My food arrived, and I dipped a tortilla chip in pico de gallo and ate it. The pico de gallo at Dos Amigos was amazingly good, different from any other pico de gallo I had ever eaten.
“Did those actors just come out of nowhere when the X-Files series started?” Janet McAllen asked. “What else have they been in?”
John, Eddie, and I looked at each other awkwardly, as if trying to decide who would speak the awkward truth to our spiritual mentors. It felt like we were each saying “not it” to each other in our minds. I finally broke the silence. “I heard David Duchovny did adult films,” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t exactly adult films,” Eddie said. “It was a racy TV show on premium cable with a lot of nudity.”
“Hmm,” Janet replied. No one said anything more about that.
“It’ll be interesting to see how much from the movie makes it into the show when they start again next season,” Lars said.
“I know,” I replied. “Apparently the alien colonization is inevitable now. What did that guy from Tataouine say at the end? ‘One man cannot fight the future.’” The others chuckled.
The rest of that afternoon, amidst the rest of the movie discussion and small talk that happened in Dos Amigos and on the drive home, I kept thinking about the movie’s title. The X-Files: Fight The Future. The title screen at the beginning of the movie simply said The X-Files, although the longer title appeared on the movie posters. What did it mean to fight the future?
As far as I knew, my future did not include an Earth where humans would be used as hosts for alien parasites to gestate and colonize. But equally grand changes were coming in my life. Tomorrow, I would walk across a stage in the Recreation Pavilion, with Mom, Dad, and my brother Mark watching from somewhere in the stands, as I received my Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Jeromeville. Next year, I would still be in Jeromeville, but I would be spending my mornings twenty miles off campus, student teaching at Nueces High School. And a year after that, I would have a job as a teacher somewhere, no longer taking classes at UJ. My future did not present a choice as stark as the one in the movie. I did not have to decide between secretly developing a vaccine against the black alien liquid or genetically modifying myself with alien genetic material. But changes were coming in the future, as they would for the rest of my life, and then, as always, I had a choice. I could fight the changes, with no guarantee of success, or I could adapt myself to live with the changes. Knowing which to do in each situation was not always easy, but it was an important life skill.
So I kind of messed this up. Years ago in my notes, I wrote down to use “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters as the song for the episode where character-Greg almost wins Man of Steel. And with episodes about movies, I usually use the popular song from the movie as the song for that episode. But this means that two of the last three episodes have used Foo Fighters songs, and I try not to repeat artists that quickly. Oh well… not much I can do about it now, and I don’t think any of you will be picky enough to care.
Readers: Are you usually the kind of person who fights changes or embraces them? Tell me about it in the comments.
If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.
I headed east on Coventry Boulevard, making the familiar drive to the De Anza house. I had not been there for almost three weeks. The guys who lived there hosted a weekly watch party for the TV seriesThe X-Files, but the season had ended and the watch parties had been suspended with the show now in reruns for the summer. The guys from the De Anza house were also the current hosts of the Man of Steel competition, and this was what brought me there on that Saturday morning, just before I would begin my last few days of classes and my last final exams as an undergraduate.
When I arrived, about a dozen guys were already there, including the six who lived at the De Anza house: Eddie Baker, John Harvey, Lars Ashford, Xander Mackey, Jason Costello, and Ramon Quintero. I arrived on time, and in the following half hour, many more showed up. I heard murmurs of others’ conversations through the din of voices, everything from routine small talk to talk of upcoming summer mission trips. Lars, John, Jason, and Ramon were also playing GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64; I heard the sound effects from the game coming from the TV, as well as those four guys occasionally shouting at each other in response to being shot in the game. My brother Mark had gotten that game for Christmas, but I had only played it a few times while I was home on break. I was not very good at it.
This was my third time participating in the Man of Steel competition, an event held annually among the men of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship. The events for this competition were the same as last year: disc golf, taco eating, and poker. When I was a sophomore, Brian Burr and his roommates hosted the event. They graduated that year and passed the hosting duties to Eddie. Eddie was graduating this year, so someone else would have to take over as host next year.
In my first Man of Steel, a lot of very large guys dominated the eating contest, able to stuff ridiculous amounts of food in their large mouths. Some of these guys were also really good at both disc golf and poker. But all of those guys had graduated, and as I looked around the room, no clear favorites stood out to me. JCF also had a large freshman class this year, and some of those freshmen, like 3 Silver and his friend Randy, looked like they could be formidable competitors.
At around 10:30, Eddie called us to attention. “It’s time to begin,” he said.
“But we just started,” Lars protested from the other side of the room, where he and Ramon were now playing GoldenEye with 3 and another freshman, Blake Lowry. “And Blake hasn’t gotten to play yet.”
“How long of a game did you set it to?” Eddie asked.
“Ten minutes.”
“Fine. Finish your game. No one start any new games.” Eddie sounded a little annoyed, and I did not blame him.
At 10:38, thirty-eight minutes after our scheduled start time, the “one minute left” message flashed on the GoldenEye screen, and Eddie started getting our attention. When the game ended, Eddie explained that we would be playing disc golf in groups of four, as always, and that we would leave every five minutes, and that we would be keeping to the schedule. “No one start any new games of GoldenEye,” he specifically pointed out. “The first group will be Raphael, 3, Todd, and Randy.” I was not in the first group, so I walked around talking to people while I waited to be called.
“How’s it going, Greg?” Tim Walton said, shaking my hand. Tim, with his relatively thin frame and Buddy Holly glasses, did not strike me as being particularly athletic, or one who would be a threat in the eating competition, but he could end up surprising me. I should not underestimate my competition.
“Good,” I said. “Hoping to keep improving. My first time doing Man of Steel, I was terrible, but Eddie told me last year that if there had been a Most Improved award, it would have been me. I hope I keep improving.”
“Good luck. That’s a good attitude to have. You’re graduating, but staying in Jeromeville, right?”
“Yes! I can’t believe it’s almost over. Just a few more classes, then finals.”
“And then the X-Files movie!”
“Yes!”
“There’s a big group of us going on the Friday afternoon when it opens. Are you coming with us?”
“Yes. And I can drive people too.”
“That’ll be fun.”
“What are you doing this summer?” I asked.
“Just going home working. And I’ll be up here for the weekend for Scott and Amelia’s wedding, so I’ll probably see you then.”
“Yes.”
Tim’s disc golf foursome got called at that time, so he had to leave. My foursome went next, five minutes later; I was with Blake, Jason, and Ajeet Tripathi. The four of us walked outside. The De Anza house was nicknamed for its location, on the corner of De Anza Drive and Avalon Way in north Jeromeville. The Coventry Greenbelts, a series of connected bike trails with landscaping on either side, ran between people’s backyards in this part of Jeromeville, connecting two large parks and numerous smaller parks and playgrounds. I discovered the Greenbelts three years earlier, during the spring of freshman year, while I was riding my bike around Jeromeville enjoying a nice day. My life has never been the same, as recreational bike rides became a much more regular part of my life after that discovery.
One of the Greenbelt trails crossed Avalon Way just across the street from the De Anza house. The instructions for the disc golf game said to cross the street and start from the large pine tree. I pointed to what looked like a large pine tree in that direction, and as I approached, I saw a sign that said “START HERE” attached to the tree with duct tape. “Here it is,” I said. “Good luck. Who’s going first?”
“Go for it,” Blake said. “You’re the senior.”
“If we’re going by age, Jason’s older than me. He already had his birthday this year.”
“I can go first,” Jason said. “Where’s the hole?”
I read from the course instructions, then pointed a few hundred feet down the path and said, “That trash can down there, next to the bench.” As in regular golf, we usually referred to our starting places as “tees” and the targets we had to hit as “holes,” even though they were not actual tees and holes in the ground.
Jason looked down the path and threw his disc. The path to the first hole was long and straight, and his first throw easily covered more than half of the distance to the target. I stepped up next, still using the disc that I had gotten from Brian Burr for the 1996 Man of Steel competition. Brian’s faded initials were still on the back in black marker; I had added my name next to it, with my phone number in case I lost the disc and someone else found it. I swung my arm back and forth a couple times, still holding the disc, trying to concentrate on throwing straight. I had trouble throwing straight in previous years, and since I had not actively practiced, I tried to focus on throwing straight. I pulled my arm back, then released it forward, letting the disc go; it flew relatively straight down the path, not as far as Jason’s but much more on course than some of my other disc throws had gone in the past.
After the others made their throws, we walked to where our discs were and continued throwing toward the trash can, in order from farthest to closest. Jason hit the target in three throws. My second throw landed about ten feet from the target. I picked up the disc and nonchalantly tossed it at the target, nodding my head to show how easy this would be. The disc sailed over the trash can and landed on the far end of the bench next to it, still about ten feet away from the target. “D’oh!” I cried out in frustration, in the style of the television character Homer Simpson.
“Ooooh,” Blake said.
“But at least you did a pretty good Homer voice,” Ajeet added. I looked at the trash can and concentrated as I carefully tossed the disc toward it; the disc lightly bounced off the trash can and fell to the ground. I wrote down my score of four throws next to Jason’s three on the score sheet. I had made a crucial mistake, being too careless on that last throw. I told myself that I would learn from this mistake and not do that again.
We continued along the course, throwing our discs from pre-marked tees listed on the instructions, trying to hit some target in as few throws of the disc as possible. Disc golf was usually my worst of the three events in this competition, but I felt like I was doing a little better than usual just by concentrating and not being careless. When we returned to the De Anza house after 18 holes l knew that I was not in last place, because just within our foursome, my score was one throw better than Blake’s.
Taco eating was next, my strongest event from previous years. The rules were the same as last year: competitors had one minute to eat a Taco Bell soft taco, then fifty-five seconds to eat another one, then fifty seconds to eat the next one, continuing in this fashion. If someone left a taco unfinished when time ran out, that competitor was eliminated. Our group got called fifth out of the six groups, and so far Ramon was in the lead with six tacos. Last year I made it to eight, so I was feeling pretty confident.
“Go!” Eddie shouted. I finished the first taco relatively quickly and took a breath, preparing for the next one. I ate the second and third tacos more slowly, trying to pace myself, but still with time left. By the fifth taco, I was starting to feel rushed, but I managed to swallow the last of it just as time was expiring. Blake did not; he was eliminated first in our foursome. I did not finish swallowing the sixth taco in time, but I managed to fit what was left in my mouth in time. Jason and Ajeet were both eliminated when the thirty-five seconds for taco number six expired.
I was the last one standing in our foursome. I survived taco number seven, but half-chewed unfinished lumps of tacos number six and seven remained in my mouth as I began eating taco number eight. I swallowed as much as I could as the twenty-five seconds for taco number eight began, then took a large bite, trying to chew as much as I could. I swallowed more when Eddie called out that ten seconds remained; I had to make room to shove the rest of taco number eight in my mouth. As Eddie counted down, I closed my lips around what remained of the last few tacos.
I swallowed, but now I had only twenty seconds for taco number nine. I tore this taco apart with my fingers, covering my hands with grease. I swallowed again, then opened my mouth, practically inhaling half of taco number nine. As Eddie started counting down, “Five, four, three,” I swallowed quickly and used the palm of my hand to shove the other half of taco number nine inside. I closed my lips just as time expired.
“Go!” Eddie shouted. “Fifteen seconds!” I swallowed and took a bite of taco number ten, trying to chew it as Eddie gave the ten-second warning. I realized quickly that this was not going to happen. I tried shoving the rest of taco number ten in my mouth as Eddie counted down, but I still had half of the taco sticking out of my mouth as time expired. I was done, with a score of nine. I raised my arms, excited for my accomplishment, as a mixture of lettuce, cheese, and taco drool began to drop down my chin. Everyone cheered for me, in the lead with only one more group to go. I got a little nervous watching 3 and Lars both finish taco number six, but 3 spit everything out of his mouth shortly after that, and Lars finished with seven. The eating event was over, and for that event, I was alone in first place.
For the final event, poker, we each started with one dollar in pennies, and we played for one hour in our same groups of four. We took turns dealing, and the dealer chose which variety of poker we played each turn. I played relatively conservatively, folding when I felt like I was not getting a good hand, and not betting too big when I did. About halfway through the event, after I had already folded, Ajeet went all in, confident that his ace-high straight would win, but Jason beat him with a flush. Ajeet was eliminated.
In one hand of seven-card stud, with about ten minutes remaining, I had a pair of queens face down. My first two face up cards were both sixes; I had two pair, and no one knew it. This could work to my advantage, I thought as I nervously raised the bet. I became a little less sure of what I was doing when the other two raised their bets as well. On the sixth card, I received another queen face up. I had a full house. Blake had 7-8-9 showing, and he raised my bet; he probably had a straight, but my full house beat his straight. On the final round of betting, after one more face down card, Jason raised. He had three spades showing, so I guessed he might have a flush. Blake matched his raise. I looked at the others’ cards. Jason and Blake both had a king face up, and my last face down card was a king, so no one could possibly have a king-high full house. I could lose to an ace-high full house, but since no other pairs were showing, this was only possible if Jason’s face down cards were two aces and a card matching one of his face-up cards. Blake had no ace showing. I could also lose to four of a kind if someone had three face-down cards all of the same rank as one of their face-up cards. These scenarios were unlikely, so I raised again. Jason matched my raise, and Blake dropped out.
“What do you have?” Jason asked.
“Full house,” I said, showing my queens in the hole.
“Nice,” Jason replied. “That beats my flush. I thought both of you were bluffing.”
“I was bluffing,” Blake said, showing that he did not in fact have a straight.
I moved the large pot in front of me. I won another hand in the ten minutes we had left, and by the time the hour was up, I had close to three hundred pennies in front of me.
Eddie tapped me on the shoulder after the poker games finished. “Greg? Can you come help me figure out the winner?”
“Sure,” I replied. I felt honored to be included.
Eddie and I went to his bedroom, where he showed me a sheet of paper listing all of the twenty-three participants and their scores for the three events. “Usually, we just rank each person first, second, third, and so on for each event, then we add the total of what places they finished, and the Man of Steel is whoever has the lowest total. If there’s a tie, then we can look at other things.”
“Sounds good,” I said. Eddie began ranking the disc golf scores, and I ranked the taco scores. I finished before Eddie did, so I did the poker rankings next. I was particularly interested in my own scores; I was in first place in taco eating and third place in poker. Not bad. I looked over at Eddie’s score sheet for disc golf; my tenth place was solidly in the middle of the pack. Definitely an improvement from last year.
Eddie and I began adding everyone’s three places to see who had the best total. “It’s kind of different this year,” Eddie remarked, “because there’s no one who did well in all three events.”
“I see that,” I said. “Randy got third in disc golf, seventh in eating, and first in poker. That’s a total of eleven. Did anyone do better than that?”
After Eddie finished adding the last few people, he said, “Eleven? No, no one has a total lower than eleven. So Randy is our new Man of Steel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a freshman win before. Where did everyone else finish? Who is the runner-up?”
Eddie and I looked at our scratch work, then looked up at each other, the realization coming to us at exactly the same moment. I looked back at the paper, unable to believe what I was seeing, but there it was, plain as day. The numbers did not lie. “Greg!” Eddie said. “You’re in second place! You’re the runner-up Man of Steel!”
“I know!” I replied. “How did I do that?”
“Good job!” Eddie exclaimed, patting me on the back.
“I guess since no one was really strong in all three events, the top prizes this year went to people who were strong in two events and not horrible in the third,” I said. “And I had a good poker game and improved my disc golf.”
Eddie and I went back to the living room, where the others awaited our announcement. “In second place,” Eddie said, “Greg Dennison!” I smiled as everyone cheered for me.
“It was fixed!” Lars called out. “Greg was counting the scores!”
“I can show you the numbers,” I said.
“Nah, I’m just messing with you. Congratulations, Greg.”
“And in first place,” Eddie continued, “your 1998 Man of Steel, the first freshman to win in as long as any of us can remember: Randy Smith!” Everyone cheered more loudly as Randy pumped his fist and gave a celebratory yell. Eddie then said, “And since I’m graduating, Randy, Blake, Tim, and 3 will be taking over next year as the hosts of Man of Steel. They’ll be roommates in Pine Grove Apartments.” Everyone cheered again.
I would participate in two more Man of Steel competitions, the official one at Pine Grove the following year, and an unofficial one which served as Eddie’s bachelor party in 2001. Randy, Blake, Tim, and 3 were great hosts, but I never came closer to winning than my second-place finish in 1998. The torch was passing, and my Man of Steel career would come to an end soon.
I was back at the De Anza house the following night for the Jeromeville Christian Fellowship senior banquet, proudly wearing my Man of Steel shirt. In previous years, Man of Steel participants received a t-shirt, but this year, we decided to be more fancy. Eddie and his housemates had ordered polo shirts, blue-gray in color, with the words “Man of Steel” stitched into the right chest. Several people who had not been there asked how the competition went, and I smiled and shared that I came in second.
During that senior banquet, Janet McAllen from the JCF staff team said, “I remember, back when you guys were freshmen, I was thinking that it’ll be bittersweet when you graduate. So many of you from your class were so active in this fellowship, and so active in doing work for the Kingdom of God. But the good news is that I feel the same way about this year’s freshman class. So I know that you will be passing the torch and leaving the fellowship in good hands.”
It was time to pass the torch. I had another year at the University of Jeromeville, with my student teaching coming up next year, and I would continue to attend JCF when I could. But I would have other priorities next year. All of us at that senior banquet were growing up, going out into the real world, and others were coming to take our place leading this fellowship. I was not sure exactly what the future would hold, but the time I had spent in JCF was preparing me for the future spiritually, and I had made some of the best friendships of my life during that time.
Readers: Tell me about a time you did better in a competition than you expected to.
If you like what you read, don’t forget to like this post and follow this blog. Also follow Don’t Let The Days Go By on Facebook and Instagram.
I did not expect many people to be out and about at 8:44 on a Saturday morning. Jeromeville was a university town, and many students would probably be sleeping off hangovers from the night before, or just generally sleeping in. As I turned east on Coventry Boulevard, into the morning sun, I reached up and flipped the car visor down. The sun rose early this time of year, so it was high enough now that the visor actually blocked it.
A ways down the road, I stopped at a red light at the intersection with G Street. The Art Center, where I saw the now-defunct band Lawsuit play the summer after sophomore year, was to my right, with a large city park next to it. I noticed a lot of cars parked along G Street, probably for youth baseball games at the park. Maybe soccer too; soccer was huge in Jeromeville, but I did not follow soccer enough to know if this was youth soccer season. I remembered those days back in Plumdale of watching my younger brother Mark play baseball, and working the scoreboard and snack bar with my mother. I enjoyed watching Mark’s games, but some days the rest of the family would insist on staying at the park all day to watch every other game. I did not particularly want to watch kids I did not know play baseball, so I would go home after Mark’s game and play Nintendo by myself.
At the eastern edge of Jeromeville, about four miles from my house, Coventry Boulevard turned to the south and became Bruce Boulevard. I drove across the railroad tracks and the adjacent Highway 100 on an overpass, heading south. The road descended into a neighborhood of highway commercial services, the kind of symbol of corporate America that the Jeromeville City Council and their ilk would probably consider a stain on their precious little city. Too bad for them. I turned right past fast food restaurants and gas stations and pulled into the parking lot of a Denny’s adjacent to a Howard Johnson express motel.
I expected Denny’s to be mostly empty, but I was wrong. The restaurant was about three-quarters full, with a number of older customers drinking their morning coffee at the bar and waiters bringing plates of greasy breakfast food to a group of students who looked to have been awake all night partying. I inhaled the scent of bacon and pancake syrup and smiled. I had not had a real breakfast like this in months. That frat boy in my writing class may have a low opinion of Denny’s, but I enjoy a nice big greasy breakfast every once in a while.
“Table for just one, sir?” a middle-aged waitress asked over the din of speaking customers.
“I’m meeting someone here,” I replied. “Do you mind if I look around to see if she’s here yet?”
“Go ahead,” the waitress said. It did not take me long to walk around the restaurant and conclude that I had arrived first. I asked for a table for two, and the waitress led me to a table and placed two menus on it.
I had gotten an email from Danielle Coronado about a week ago, the first I had heard from her in months. Danielle was one of my closest friends freshman year; she lived right down the hall from me in Building C. She was the one who first suggested that I sing in the choir at Mass at the Newman Center sophomore year, and in University Chorus junior year. But I had not seen much of her this year. I stopped going to Newman in October of junior year, instead going to the Evangelical Covenant church where many of my friends from Jeromeville Christian Fellowship went. The last time I was in chorus was fall quarter of this school year, and Danielle could not fit chorus into her schedule that time. Now we were both about to graduate, and Danielle sent me an email saying that she was trying to catch up with as many friends in Jeromeville as she could during her last month here. I thought that was a great idea. She had scheduled so many of these meetings that the best time that worked for both of us was now, breakfast on a Saturday morning.
As I waited alone at the table, my mind began running through all of the usual scenarios. Maybe Danielle was still asleep. Maybe Danielle had to cancel on me at the last minute, and I did not get the message because I had left the house already. Maybe I went to the wrong Denny’s, even though I was positive that this was the only Denny’s in Jeromeville. Maybe sometime within the last week, Danielle got a boyfriend and decided never to speak to any of her old guy friends again. None of these were true, though; Danielle walked in about ten minutes after I got there. She still looked the same as I remembered her from the first day we met freshman year: a bit shorter than me, with shoulder-length curly brown hair and thick glasses.
“Greg!” Danielle exclaimed, putting her arms out to hug me.
“It’s good to see you,” I replied, returning the hug. She sat at the table across from me.
“How are you? I feel like we haven’t talked in forever!”
“Probably because we haven’t,” I said. “But I’m doing okay. Just busy with all the usual stuff. What about you?”
“Same. It feels weird that we’re about to graduate!”
“I know.”
“You’re finishing this quarter?”
“Yes. Then staying in Jeromeville for the teacher certification program. I told you I was doing that next year, right?”
“I think last I heard you were going to do a teaching program, but you didn’t know for sure where. That’s exciting! How does that work? Will you be in a classroom?”
“We had a meeting earlier this week to learn more about the program and get our assignments,” I explained. “I’ll be at Nueces High School in the mornings, helping out in two classrooms at first, then gradually taking over the classes as the year goes on. And in the afternoons, I’ll have classes here at UJ.”
The waitress interrupted to take our food orders. Danielle ordered scrambled eggs with fruit on the side; I ordered the big breakfast meal with pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns.
“Nueces High,” Danielle repeated. “How far is Nueces from Jeromeville?”
“About a twenty minute drive. Not too bad.”
“What classes will you be teaching?”
“Geometry and Basic Math B.”
“What’s Basic Math B?”
“Basically, that’s the class for students who need another math class to graduate, but won’t ever be taking another math class. I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy working with those students as much as the geometry students.”
“Still, it’s exciting, though! You’re one step closer to being a teacher!”
“I know! What are you doing next year? You’re going for a master’s in psych, right?”
“Yeah. At South Valley State. Closer to home.”
“That sounds good,” I said. “Good luck! What else have you been up to this year?”
Danielle told me about her classes this quarter keeping her busy, so busy that she had not been able to do chorus at all this year. I told her about the strange piece we had to sing for the ceremony when the drama building was renamed Waite Hall. I also told her about working with the youth group kids at church and going with them to Winter Camp in February. Our food arrived while I was talking about Winter Camp.
“I’m glad you like your new church,” she said.
“How are things at the Newman Center? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. It’s the same as it always is. That’s one thing about Catholicism; you always pretty much know what to expect.”
“That’s true. Keeping to traditions is good,” I said.
“Are you still going to JCF?” Danielle asked.
“Yes. They had a spring retreat this year, a few weeks ago. It was good.”
“That’s good! Where’d you go?”
“Muddy Springs, outside of Bidwell. I’d been to retreats there before.”
“Is that the place with the old hotel?”
“Yeah,” I said. I wondered how Danielle had heard of that, being from the other end of the state. But I knew that she had other friends in JCF besides me; the people who got me involved with JCF in the first place all lived in Building C with me and Danielle freshman year. She may have heard about a past JCF retreat from one of them. Or maybe even from me. “Taylor, Liz and Ramon, Pete and Caroline, and Sarah were all on that retreat too. The seven of us took a group picture. Friends since Building C freshman year.” I suddenly realized that maybe I should not have said that. Danielle and Pete dated for about a year, and Danielle and Caroline were roommates freshman year, so she might not exactly want to be reminded that Pete and Caroline were dating now.
“Aww, how sweet,” Danielle replied, smiling genuinely. If she was bothered by my mention of Pete and Caroline, she did not show it. “Speaking of JCF people, I heard that Tabitha Sasaki and Eddie Baker are dating?”
“Yes,” I said. Danielle did not run around in the same circles as Tabitha and Eddie, but I assumed that she probably heard this, and knew them in the first place, because she and Eddie and Tabitha had many mutual friends. After all, I also had met Tabitha through mutual friends before I got involved with JCF.
“Good for them!” Danielle said. “Are they graduating this year?”
“Yeah. They’re both staying in Jeromeville. Eddie is going on staff with JCF part time, and Tabitha is going to do the teacher training program at Capital State, to be an elementary school teacher.”
“That’s good.”
“How’s Carly?” I asked. “I never see her anymore either.”
“She’s good. She spends all her time with her boyfriend these days. I feel like I hardly ever see her anymore. But they’re really happy together.” I felt that familiar pang of disappointment when I heard the word boyfriend; Carly was now just one more cute girl I would not end up with. I never considered her an option, though; I was close enough friends with Danielle that it would have just seemed wrong to try to get romantically involved with her better-looking younger sister. I also remembered something Danielle said when Carly started at Jeromeville that suggested a history of sibling rivalry between them, especially being so close in age, barely a year apart.
“Tell her I said hi next time you talk to her.”
“I will,” Danielle replied. After a pause, she continued, “What do you have going on the rest of the weekend? Any big plans?”
“Tonight I have an initiation ceremony for Phi Beta Kappa,” I said.
“Phi Beta Kappa? That’s the organization for really smart people, right? Not like a fraternity?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling.
“Congratulations! My grades have always been decent, but not good enough to get into Phi Beta Kappa.”
“I wasn’t expecting it. I got a letter from them a couple months ago saying I had been chosen as a member. I pay a fairly small membership fee, and I can put it on my résumé in the future.”
“How cool! Good for you!”
“Thank you.”
Danielle and I continued making small talk as we finished eating. Around quarter to eleven, she said, “I should probably get going. I have some studying to do, then I’m having dinner with Theresa Arnold. Do you ever talk to her anymore?”
“I haven’t seen Theresa in so long,” I said. “Tell her I said hi.”
“I will!”
After we paid and left the restaurant, Danielle and I walked to the parking lot. I said, “This was such a great idea on your part, to reconnect with all your old friends before you graduate. Thanks so much for including me.”
“You’re welcome! It was so good to see you!”
“You too!” I gave Danielle a hug, then got into the car and drove home.
The Phi Beta Kappa Society was not the first honor society to invite me. Last year, I had paid the fees to become a member of Golden Key National Honor Society, as well as Pi Mu Epsilon, an honor society specifically for mathematics majors. I also was invited to join another one called Phi Kappa Phi, but I turned them down. Their initiation ceremony featured a keynote speech about the promise of human cloning. As a Christian, I believed that life began at conception and every soul had life breathed into it by God, and that cloning humans was immoral and unethical, so I wanted no part of that organization. In hindsight, that may have been an impulsive decision, especially since I never told anyone in the organization why I turned them down.
Phi Beta Kappa was the oldest academic honor society in the United States, having been founded in Virginia in 1776. I did not grow up among academics, and Phi Beta Kappa was the only honor society I had ever heard of before beginning university studies, so it must be prestigious. The invitation said that the dress code was “not formal,” requiring only shirts, ties, and jackets for men. Any group that considered wearing a tie and jacket “not formal” was far more upscale than anything I had ever experienced. I did not own a dressy jacket, but it seemed too hot for a jacket this time of year anyway. I hoped I would not feel underdressed in my shirt and tie.
The event was in a conference center on campus that I had only seen from the outside. It was on the south end of campus on Old Jeromeville Road, on the other side of the Arboretum from Waite Hall and the music building. I turned off of OJ Road into a parking lot and walked inside the building, looking a little overwhelmed. I was not late, but apparently others more familiar with the world of higher academics knew to arrive early, because the room already seemed full. Students mingled with adults and with each other; some of the other men wore full suits, and some were dressed like me. “Welcome,” a middle-aged woman in a dress told me as I was looking around. She handed me a program.
“Hi,” I replied.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Greg,” I replied. I noticed then that she had a box of large envelopes labeled with names, and that there would probably be one in there for me, but she would need my full name in order to find it. “Gregory J. Dennison,” I said.
She flipped through the box of envelopes and handed me one. It had my name on it, printed on a label. “Here you go, Greg. Inside you’ll find your certificate, and all the information you need about the Society.”
“Thank you,” I said. The room was kind of loud with this many people in it. There were well over a hundred people in the room, but this was still a small percentage of the population of this large university. No one I knew well was here, although I recognized a couple of faces of people I had had classes with at some point.
A few minutes later, a gray-haired man standing in the front of the room spoke into a microphone and told us to sit. The speaker proceeded to tell us about the history of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, from its founding as a philosophical society and its evolution into a selective honor society. The society had chapters only at academically selective universities, and only the best students at these universities were invited to join. Another speaker, the same woman who handed me the envelope when I entered, spoke next, explaining that Phi Beta Kappa was so much more than something to put on a résumé. She encouraged us to get involved with local chapters, which hosted networking events and academic functions to promote lifelong learning. A third speaker added that the Society sent a free publication a couple times each year, with another subscription-only magazine available as well. Both included scholarly articles, reviews of academic publications, and information about the Society’s efforts advocating for liberal arts education.
At the end of the speech, we were all invited to stay for refreshments. I looked through the envelope. Inside was an order form for official Phi Beta Kappa insignia and merchandise, including the key that was the widely recognized symbol of the Society. It was nice to be a member of this prestigious and selective society, but all of these extras cost money, and I questioned their value in my life. I wandered over to the refreshment table and spent the next half hour people-watching, while consuming fruit punch and little cubes of various kinds of cheese, and also the occasional baby carrot to make myself feel healthy. Some of the adults who were involved in the local chapter, including those who spoke, introduced themselves to me and encouraged me to get involved. “I’ll look into it,” I said.
Although I felt out of place in an academic honor society, I felt proud of my accomplishments. Not everyone could say that they were a member of a prestigious organization like Phi Beta Kappa. Although I never got involved in the local chapter or any academic events, I did always skim through the free publications that showed up in my mailbox over the years, and about a decade later, I splurged and bought the cheapest possible Phi Beta Kappa key, engraved with my name, school, and graduation year on the back.
As I drove home that night, I realized how the events of this day made the approaching end of my undergraduate studies feel more real. I was now a member of a group only open to high-achieving students from select universities, and a month from now, I would be graduating, with honors, from the University of Jeromeville. This was a big deal. Life was changing, and while I would still be in school next year, it would be a completely different feeling, because next year would prepare me for a specific career.
Also, Danielle, one of the first friends I made in Jeromeville, had specifically sought out her old friends, because she knew that she would leave Jeromeville soon. She wanted to see her old friends for what may be the last time in a while. That day was in fact the last time I saw Danielle in person. She got busy with graduate school the following year, and we lost touch. She found me on Facebook when we were in our early thirties, but she stopped using Facebook soon after that, and we lost touch again. I do not know where she is or what she is doing today.
I did not have many friends as a child, and I felt closer to the friends I had in Jeromeville than any other group of friends in my life so far. But I knew that those friendships would be changing. I had already grown apart from some of the people I knew as a freshman. Many of my friends would be graduating this year, and I expected to lose touch with some of them, but I would do everything I could to try my best to stay in touch. Fortunately, this transition would be gradual. I was still going to be in Jeromeville next year, and I had friends who were not graduating on time who would still be here. I also had younger friends who were still in school, and I had connections at church whose lives were not tied to school years. Growing up was a part of life, and while it always hurt to grow apart from people, I knew that this was also necessary to make room for new, exciting things in life.
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I packed my sleeping bag and pillow in the back of my Ford Bronco, along with a bag containing my toothbrush and toothpaste. I had considered bringing the sweat pants I wore for pajamas and a full change of clothes, but realized I was overthinking. I would only be staying long enough to sleep, so as not to have to drive home in the middle of the night, and leaving first thing in the morning. I could handle sleeping in my clothes for one night.
I started the car and headed out of Jeromeville south on Highway 117, merging onto Highway 100 west toward Bay City two and a half miles down the road. The weather was cool and cloudy but dry, typical for an afternoon in December. It was only four-thirty in the afternoon, but the sun would already be setting soon, also typical for December.
This first part of the drive was extremely familiar to me, since it was the same drive I made every time I went back home to see my family. I had just been this way yesterday morning in the opposite direction coming home from winter break. I watched the fields and trees pass by as I continued heading southwest across the short dimension of the Valley at sixty-five miles per hour. The cities of Silvey, Nueces, and Fairview passed by me as I passed slow trucks and reckless drivers passed me. Just past Fairview, about thirty miles past Jeromeville, I started to merge into the right lane, to get on Highway 6 southbound toward San Tomas, when I realized that I was not going that way. Almost every other time I had made this drive, I had taken 6 south, headed toward home, but today I was going somewhere else.
I took the next exit, Highway 212 west toward Silverado and Redwood Valley. The rest of my drive would not be a straight shot down one road, and much of it would be on roads with one lane in each direction, winding through hills covered with vineyards and cow pastures. It would be much more fun making this trip in the other direction tomorrow morning after the sun came back up, so I could actually see the beautiful countryside and the road ahead.
I crossed the Silverado River on a high bridge and followed the highway around a curve to the right, toward the city of Silverado, only to turn left at a stoplight and head away from the city on a road with just one lane in each direction. I was trying not to drive too fast, since I had only been this way twice before and did not want to miss a turn in the dark.
I found the turn I was looking for, Highway 164 to Hillside, a few miles before Redwood Valley. Highway 212 went directly to Valle Luna, but Brian’s directions said that there was a faster way to get from Jeromeville to Valle Luna. I was not familiar with this area, so I took his word for it. I had gone this way two years ago when I went to visit Renee Robertson at Valle Luna State, but the university was south of 212 so in that case it made sense to take 164 and not backtrack.
At around 5:50, I got to Hillside and turned onto Highway 11 northbound for another fifteen miles into Valle Luna, a good-sized city of about two hundred thousand residents. Highway 212, which I had turned off of earlier, crossed Highway 11 right in the middle of Valle Luna. I turned on 212 west and drove to what appeared to be the extreme western edge of the city, as fields opened up against the hills to the west that separated Valle Luna from the coast. I turned right at a stoplight which took me back into residential neighborhoods, and about two miles north of 212, I turned into the Burrs’ neighborhood.
Brian Burr, one of my roommates from the previous school year, was two years older than me, having graduated from the University of Jeromeville in 1996. His goal was to be a doctor, but he had not gotten into any medical schools. He spent the 1996-97 school year working part time on staff with Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, where I had met him, and also retaking all the entrance exams and reapplying to medical school. Last fall, he moved across the country to attend New York Medical College, just north of New York City in Westchester County. He had just finished his first semester, and he was back at his parents’ house in Valle Luna for winter break, where apparently he was known for throwing amazing New Year parties.
Brian’s parents lived on a cul-de-sac just a little way off of the main road. It was only 6:14, still hours before midnight, but I could already tell that parking on the cul-de-sac would fill up quickly. I parked my car in one of the last remaining free spaces and knocked on the door.
“Hi,” a middle-aged man said. “You’re looking for Brian, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You look familiar, but I don’t remember your name.”
“I’m Greg,” I said, shaking Mr. Burr’s hand. I had only met Brian’s dad once before. “Brian and I were roommates last year, at the apartment on Maple Drive.”
“Oh, yeah! Is this your first New Year’s party here?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome to our house. It’ll be a lot of fun.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“So Brian said you’re younger than him, right? Are you still in school at Jeromeville?”
“Greg!” I heard Brian’s familiar voice say. “How you been, man?” he asked as he pulled me into an embrace.
“Good,” I said. “How’s medical school?”
“It’s a lot of work. But it’s good. What about you? You went away to Oregon or Washington or something for the summer to do research, right?”
“Yeah. Grandvale, Oregon. I’m glad I went, but the biggest thing I learned was that I don’t want to do math research as a career.”
A tall blond guy around Brian’s age walked into the room. “Greg!” he said. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Mike,” I said. Mike Kozlovsky had graduated from UJ the same year as Brian. He was also from Valle Luna, and he had moved back home after graduation. “I was just talking about last summer,” I continued. “I did a math research internship in Oregon, and I learned that I didn’t want to go into math research.”
“Aww, bummer,” Mike replied.
“Better to learn this now, rather than after I gave three years of my life to a Ph.D. program,” I said.
“That’s a really good point,” Brian said.
“Why didn’t you like it?” Mike asked.
“Math research is weird!” I explained. “All the things being researched are so abstract and advanced that I can’t understand them even when I’m about to finish a degree. It’s just not interesting. And I also just didn’t really click with the others in the program.”
“So what do you want to do now?” Brian asked.
“I’m gonna be a teacher. Probably for high school.”
“Will you be in the same program Shawn was in?”
“That’s the plan. I’ve applied to that. I also thought about applying to the program at Capital State, but it’s kind of confusing how theirs works, and it won’t really be any advantage for me to do that one. I just want to get into a classroom as soon as I can at this point.”
“Hopefully you don’t end up with the same master teacher that Shawn hated.”
“Didn’t Shawn quit the program, or something?” Mike asked.
“He finished all the classes, but he didn’t apply for any teaching jobs,” Brian explained. “He moved back to Ashwood and opened a running apparel store with one of his old running buddies back home.”
“That’s right.”
“Is Shawn coming tonight?” I asked Brian.
“No. He really wanted to, but he’s too busy with the store.”
“I get that.”
I walked inside and sat next to a bowl of tortilla chips as Brian mingled with people I did not recognize. A large amount of pizza arrived about an hour after I did, and I piled about five or six slices on my plate and began eating.
As I watched people trickle in, and waved and said hi to the ones I knew: Kristina Kasparian, Lars Ashford, Lorraine Mathews, John Harvey, and several others. But I also realized that Brian had a lot of friends whom I did not know. I met Brian two years ago through Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, when Brian was a senior and I was a sophomore, but I did not know him well until that next spring and summer when he and Shawn and I made plans to live together. Brian had been at UJ for two years before I started there. He had probably made friends with people who ran in different circles, or had graduated, by the time I met him. Brian also was at his parents’ house, in Valle Luna, where he grew up, so some of these people whom I did not know were probably Brian’s childhood or high school friends.
Eddie Baker and Tabitha Sasaki had arrived separately, about half an hour apart, while I was eating chips and pizza. I had said hi to both of them, but we had not actually talked yet, so when I was done eating, I walked to where they were sitting. “Greg!” Tabitha said, smiling and motioning to the empty couch seat on her left. Eddie sat on her right. “Come sit down!”
“Hey,” I said, a little louder than I would have liked since there was now music playing. I did not recognize the song. “What have you guys been up to? How’s your break going?”
“Good,” Eddie said. “Mostly just been hanging out with Tabitha.” Eddie and Tabitha did not know each other before coming to UJ, but their families lived fairly close to each other in two neighboring suburbs of San Tomas.
“Did you go home to Plumdale?” Tabitha asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “My cousins who visit every Christmas were there. And last weekend I made a silly movie with them, and my brother, and some of my brother’s friends.”
“That’s great,” Eddie said. “Kind of like the Dog Crap and Vince movie you made with the kids from church?”
“Exactly! My brother saw that when I brought it home for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to make a movie with me too.”
“Good! I’m going to Winter Camp in February. That’ll be fun.”
“It will be! Make sure you bring snow clothes.”
“I know. I’m going to need to do some shopping.”
“What was your movie about?” Tabitha asked.
“We have this game we kind of made up called Moport. It’s like a cross between soccer, football, and hockey. In our movie, this bad Moport team accidentally drafts the wrong player, and he’s really weird, but they find ways to win. And this other guy tries to sabotage the team.”
“That sounds silly.”
“Very silly,” I agreed.
After I finished catching up with Eddie and Tabitha, I watched Brian and some others dancing to some song I did not know, with lyrics in Spanish. Scott Madison and Amelia Dye were sitting in chairs next to the snack table. I had not talked to them yet, so I sat down in another empty chair at the table. “Hey,” I said.
“Hi, Greg!” Amelia said, smiling.
“Greg Dennison’s Chili,” Scott added, shaking my hand, using the nickname he had recently come up with for me. I had had a few people over the years ask me if I was related to the people who made Dennison’s brand chili (I was not), but Scott was so far the first to use that as an actual nickname.
“And working on med school applications,” Amelia added.
“When is the wedding?”
“June 27,” Amelia explained. “We’ll be having the ceremony at J-Cov, then for the reception we’ll all caravan across the Drawbridge to the Capital City Downtown Ballroom.”
“Nice.”
“Hey, guys,” Brian said, joining us. “What’s up?”
“Oh! Brian! Guess what I’m doing in three weeks?” Amelia said excitedly. “I have an interview at New York Med!”
“Nice!” Brian said. “That would be cool if you two ended up moving to New York with me.”
“Yeah! We’d know someone already there.”
“How is medical school going?” I asked Brian.
“It’s good. So far it’s just classroom work, so not that different from what I experienced at Jeromeville. But it was hard to get back into the routine of being in school again, after taking last year off.”
“I bet,” I said.
“We had an end-of-semester social event for all the first-year med students a couple weeks ago. It’s a little weird that they serve alcohol at school-sponsored socials. They just assume everyone in med school is old enough to drink.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Because everyone is. Amelia? Where else have you applied?” Amelia listed numerous other medical schools around the country. Much like Brian had the previous year, Amelia really had applied all over, but apparently New York Med was one of her top choices. That would be nice if Amelia and Brian ended up at the same school.
As the night went on, the party got louder. A few people seemed a bit tipsy, and Brian had had a few drinks, but many of Brian’s friends from Jeromeville were Christians and did not drink to excess. At one point, someone pulled out a karaoke machine, and Brian sang “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, one of his favorites. I had been in University Chorus three times now, but I still did not like singing solo in front of people.
Later, after the karaoke machine had been put away but with music still playing, another ABBA song came on, “Take A Chance On Me.” Brian jumped up and began dancing with his arms in the air. One time when we lived together, I came home from class, and as soon as Brian saw that I was home, he put on Take A Chance On Me and started doing this same silly dance he was doing now.
A few minutes after Take A Chance On Me finished, people started saying it was time, and someone turned off the music. It took a few seconds for me to figure out what was going on; after I remembered the occasion of this evening, I looked at my watch surprised to see that it was already close to midnight. The night went by fast. Someone turned on the television to one of the major networks’ New Year broadcasts, and when the countdown to midnight displayed on the screen reached thirty seconds, everyone stared at the screen and began counting out loud. Numbers that large were difficult to count down at a rate of one per second, so I did not join in the countdown until ten seconds were left.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!”
By now, people were excited enough that the counting was no longer synchronized to the clock on the television, or to each other. As much as it bothered me to be inaccurate, I tried to stay synchronized to the majority of the people counting.
“Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy new year!”
I heard those loud little confetti poppers being popped across the room. Someone handed me one; I pulled the string and watched a small amount of confetti explode upward away from me. Those who had drinks in glasses clinked their glasses together; Scott and Amelia were closest to me, and I clinked my aluminum Coca-Cola can to their glasses, saying “Clink!” out loud since my can did not make a clinking noise. Scott laughed.
I stayed up for at least another two hours, talking, watching people dance, and occasionally snacking. This kind of thing happens to me every New Year’s Day, but I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it was 1998 already. I was going to graduate in 1998. That was only six short months away, and a few months after that, I would be student teaching in a high school math classroom somewhere. As I got older, as the year number on the calendar kept going up, life just seemed to move faster and faster.
Around two in the morning, I walked out to my car and got my sleeping bag. Brian had said to bring a sleeping bag, that we were all welcome to sleep on the floor and leave in the morning. The party was starting to quiet down by then, since many of the locals had gone home. It was still noisy enough that I was not expecting to fall asleep, but I was tired enough that I nodded in and out of consciousness for the next hour and a half. I woke up having to use the bathroom at 3:30, and by then, the living room was dark, with several other people asleep in sleeping bags on the floor.
I woke up again at 7:42, and could not go back to sleep. Everyone else was still asleep, and I did not want to wake anyone. This kind of thing often happened to me when I was sleeping away from home in a group, where I was awake far earlier than everyone else, so I packed a book to read just in case, The Pelican Brief by John Grisham. The lighting was not ideal for reading, since the sun had just come up and the drapes were closed, but I could see well enough.
A few people gradually woke up as I was reading; I waved hello and occasionally whispered when necessary. I hated sleeping in a strange place with other people in the room, but I did not want to leave without saying goodbye to Brian.
Brian finally appeared around 9:15. I stood up, still fully clothed from the night before, rolled my sleeping bag, and went to the bathroom, also brushing my teeth this time. Then I walked toward Brian at the kitchen table. “I’m going to head home now,” I said.
“Okay,” Brian replied. “Thanks so much for coming. It was good seeing you.”
“You too! Thanks for inviting me! Keep in touch. Good luck with school.”
“Thanks. And good luck with being a teacher. I think you’d make a great teacher.”
“Wow. Thank you.”
I said a quiet goodbye to everyone else who was still at the party and awake. Some of them I would not see again for a long time. Others who were still students at UJ I would see in a few days at most.
The drive home through the hills between Valle Luna and Silverado was, as I suspected, beautiful in the daylight. It had rained enough over the last month that green grasses were growing in empty fields. Many of the hillsides were planted with grapevines, which were bare this time of year, without leaves, but there was something calming about the parallel rows of grapevines and lattices covering the countryside.
As would often happen at the beginning of a year, I drove toward Jeromeville with a feeling of hope and promise. This year had positive things in store. In addition to graduation and starting a new phase of my education, I also had Winter Camp to look forward to. And I was sure that the year would be full of unexpected surprises, some good, some bad. Maybe this year would be full of new experiences. Maybe the love of my life would be waiting just around the corner. Who knows?
Readers: How do you usually celebrate the New Year? What’s your most memorable New Year story? Tell me about it in the comments.
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The weather in Jeromeville for most of October was typically what I could consider perfect. Days were sunny, with afternoon temperatures in the 80s, still warm enough to be outside, but the nights were cool, so the days did not get blisteringly hot like they did in July and August. I was still wearing shorts to class during the third full week of fall quarter, and I had some free time on that Wednesday afternoon, so I sat outside on the Quad. I brought another book with me to campus in addition to my textbooks, and I was looking through this book when I saw Carrie Valentine walking toward me, coming from the direction of the library and headed toward the flagpole. I waved, but she was not looking in my direction, so I quickly put my hand down, not wanting to look awkward. I nervously watched as she approached and waved again when she turned her head toward me. She stepped off the path and walked toward me.
“Hey, Greg,” Carrie said, smiling. She put her bag down and sat on the grass facing me. “Can I hang out here?”
Yes, I thought. Of course you can. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve actually gotten to talk to you, and I’ll never make you fall in love with me if we don’t talk more often. But all I said out loud was, “Sure. What’s up?”
“I’m meeting with my Kairos leader,” Carrie explained. “But I’m early.”
“That’s cool! Whose Bible study are you in this year?”
“Joe Fox and Lydia Tyler. The group is so huge, we usually read the Scripture together and then break up into three smaller groups.”
“How big is it?”
“Usually around twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five! Why so many?”
“Honestly, I think it’s because, with all the Kairos groups, and all the specialized Bible studies for certain groups of people, there was only one group left for all the rest of us.”
“Interesting. You couldn’t be in a Kairos group?”
“The Kairos ministry is for training future leaders. You have to be asked to be in a Kairos group, and they don’t invite seniors. Unless you’re leading a group as a senior and you were in one before, like Liz.”
“I see,” Carrie replied. “Hmm.”
I decided not to share my exact thoughts about Jeromeville Christian Fellowship’s Kairos ministry, since Carrie was part of a Kairos group. As I was thinking about what else to say, Carrie broke the silence and asked, “What are you working on? Is that the course catalog?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I was trying to figure out if it’s possible for me to graduate at the end of this year, what classes I still need to take, stuff like that.”
“That’s exciting! What are you doing after graduation?”
“I’m still trying to figure out if I’ll do my teacher certification through Jeromeville, or Capital State, or somewhere else. I know Jeromeville’s program is one year, and it’s only fall through spring. If I graduate in June, then I’ll be able to do that, but if I don’t graduate until December of ’98, then I’ll either have to wait until the fall of ’99 to start student teaching, or see if anyone has a program where I can start in the winter.”
“I hope you get all that figured out.”
“I got this Graduation Progress Tracker form in the mail last week, I guess they send it to all the seniors. They list all the graduation requirements and what you’ve done and what you still need. And I also have some prerequisites for the teacher certification program that I have to be able to fit in.” I saw a familiar face out of the corner of my eye walk up to the flagpole. “There’s Liz over there,” I said, pointing.
“Oh, yeah,” Carrie replied. “I should go. Good luck figuring that out! Keep me posted.”
“I will! Tell Liz I said hi.” I watched as Carrie got up and walked to the flagpole. She said something to Liz, who then turned in my direction. I waved, and both of them waved back.
My new house on Acacia Drive was a quick three minute walk to church, and in addition to Sunday mornings, I was there every Wednesday night as a volunteer with The Edge, the youth group for junior high school students. Before the students arrived, the leaders met to catch up, go over the events of the upcoming night, and share prayer requests.
“What’s up,” Taylor Santiago said as I approached the group. I had known Taylor the longest of any of the other Edge leaders; he lived on the floor above me freshman year. Taylor was also the one who first suggested I get involved with The Edge.
“Not much,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out if I can graduate in June.”
“I thought you said you were going to go four years plus one more quarter.”
“I just assumed I had to, with all the math classes I still have to take and the prerequisites for the teacher training program. But I was looking at stuff earlier, and if I understand correctly, I think I will be able to graduate. I wanted to take some more of Dr. Hurt’s New Testament classes, but I might have to skip those if I don’t want an extremely full class schedule. They don’t fulfill any requirements at this point.”
“Have you filed your intent to graduate yet?” Noah Snyder asked, having overheard this entire conversation so far. Noah was the youth group intern, being paid part time by the church to lead The Edge.
“Not yet,” I replied, “but I want to do that in the next few days. I just hope I understand everything correctly, and that I don’t get to graduation day and someone tells me that I can’t actually graduate, that I have to take more classes.”
“That won’t happen,” Taylor said. “I’m pretty sure someone will contact you if you file for graduation and you haven’t met the requirements yet.”
“Kathleen Sutton works with the office that handles all that stuff,” Noah added. “You could probably ask her to look over your form.”
“That’s good to know,” I said. Kathleen Sutton was a youth group parent; the Suttons occasionally hosted lunch socials for the church college group at their house. Kathleen’s daughter was in The Edge last year, and she had an older son in high school and a younger son in the preteen youth group. “When I got that Graduation Progress form, it had a number to call. I’m sure between that person and Kathleen Sutton, I can get all of this figured out.”
“Are you going to stay at Jeromeville for your teacher certification?” Noah asked.
“If I can, I’d like to. I know the professor who does math education, and I’d be able to stay here and keep working with The Edge.”
“I’m going to stay in Jeromeville, but commute to Cap State for mine. It’s cheaper, and it just works out better for me. They have a really good program for elementary school teachers. I’m not sure what they’re like for high school teachers, though.”
“If staying in Jeromeville ends up too complicated, I’ll look into Cap State too,” I said. Capital State University was about twenty miles from Jeromeville on the other side of the Drawbridge, and Noah’s mention of their program being cheaper started to give me doubts about my tentative plan. However, Mom always told me not to worry about money, that we would find a way to pay for things. My grandmother had started a college savings account for me when I was very young, and with the academic scholarships I had received, we had hardly had to use that money so far. I would also have to find a way to pay for school if I stayed at UJ for part of a fifth year as an undergraduate, so I would keep that under consideration if any options that did not include graduating in June were still on the table.
When I got home, I went straight to my backpack, in the large bedroom that I shared with my roommate Sean. Sean was sitting at his desk typing a paper on his computer; a cluster of helium balloons, including one that said “Happy Birthday” and another that had the number “22” written on it in black marker, was rising from the floor next to him, anchored by a weight at the end of a ribbon a few feet long.
“It’s your birthday?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Sean replied.
“I didn’t know that. Happy birthday! Did you do anything fun?”
“I went out to dinner with some friends from the wildlife bio major tonight. We just got back a little while ago. And I’m flying home tomorrow to spend the weekend with my family.”
“That’ll be nice,” I said, excited for Sean that he will get to see his family, but also excited that I would have the bedroom to myself all weekend, able to flirt with girls on Internet Relay Chat and not worry about someone looking over my shoulder.
I got out my course catalog and the Graduation Progress form. I had completed my general education requirements and the classes required for everyone regardless of major. The only requirement remaining was for the major itself, and I needed three more upper-division mathematics classes, including 150B, the continuation of my current abstract algebra class. With two quarters left, I had plenty of time to take those. I was limited in which classes I could take, since not all classes were offered every quarter, or even every year. But I was sure I could find three that would work with my schedule. Math 150B was offered every year in the winter, and at this point I did not really care what the other two classes would be.
The tricky part would be preparing for the teacher training program. In my state, universities do not offer education majors; instead, teacher training is a one year graduate program taken after completing a bachelor’s degree. I would have to reapply to UJ by the end of November, this time as a graduate student applying to the School of Education. I was missing three classes for that program’s requirements: Educational Psychology, a lecture class offered by the physical education department called Healthful Living, and one more English class of my choice. I looked up to see which quarters those classes were offered, and I came up with a plan. In the winter, I would take Ed Psych, Math 150B, and some other math class that I could fit into my schedule, and in the spring, I would take Healthful Living, one more math class, and Fiction Writing for the English class. Fiction Writing was a lower-division class, but it sounded the most fun and interesting out of all the English options, and I would still have enough total upper-division units to graduate. Healthful Living was only a two-unit class, so I would need one more class in the spring in order to be a full-time student. I would be able to take one more of Dr. Hurt’s New Testament classes after all; he taught Christian Theology in the spring. For the winter, I would have just barely enough units to be a full-time student, so maybe I could look at doing another two-unit internship tutoring at Jeromeville High School, as I had done last spring.
At that moment, something caught my eye at the bottom of the Graduation Progress Tracker. A few lines of small print at the bottom informed me of a number to call if I had questions. Apparently, as fourth-year student, I had been assigned to a specific person, the one who had filled out this form, and that person would process my application to graduate, as well as answer any questions I might have. The lower left corner of the form said, “Completed by,” with a blank for that person to initial, and in that blank were the handwritten initials “KS.” I remembered Noah’s words a few hours earlier, telling me that Kathleen Sutton worked in the office that processed these forms. Could Kathleen Sutton be the “KS” who filled out my form? Did I just happen to get assigned to the one person in that office whom I knew personally? How many of these graduation processing specialists were there, and what were the chances of that? It was probably a coincidence; there were plenty of people in the world with the initials K.S. I had nothing more to do at this point for graduation planning, and I had finished everything I needed to do for tomorrow’s classes, so I went to bed.
I saw the date on Sunday morning’s newspaper; it was my brother Mark’s birthday, sixteen years old now. I reminded myself to call home this afternoon, although I had already sent him a card with a fart joke on it.
I had not yet turned in my application to graduate. I was nervous. What if I was not ready to graduate? I would apparently have my requirements done by the end of the school year, but what if I was misinterpreting the requirements? And was I really ready to finish my undergraduate time and move on to the next phase? A few weeks ago, when I thought I would need another quarter or two to graduate, I was looking forward to staying in Jeromeville longer. Jeromeville was my home now. I had a community here. Advanced mathematics was getting weird and abstract, I did not enjoy it as much as I used to, and I was ready to be done with school. But filing for graduation would bring closer the inevitable day when I would leave Jeromeville and go out into the world.
All of this was still on my mind when I got to church that morning. The worship team played a fast song to begin the service, and when they played a slow song later, I sat and prayed about these things. I asked God to give me peace about my plan to graduate at the end of the year and do my student teaching through UJ. Send me a sign that this is your will for my life, I asked silently.
God often speaks to me through odd coincidences. Some people have told me that I pay too much attention to this sort of thing, but God knows that it will get my attention. The sign that I prayed for came quickly, as I was wandering aimlessly on the patio after church mingling with others. I saw Kathleen Sutton ahead of me in the direction I was walking; she turned and looked at me, and I waved. “Hello,” I said.
“Greg,” Kathleen replied. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I work in the office that processes graduation applications. We were doing this year’s Graduation Progress Trackers, and I recognized your name on one of the forms I filled out.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. Kathleen Sutton was “KS” after all.
“I saw your transcript,” Kathleen continued. “A 3.9 grade point average, and all As in all those hard math and science classes. You have a pretty impressive academic record.”
“Thank you,” I replied.
“What are you planning to do after you graduate?”
“I’m going to be a teacher. I didn’t think about being a teacher until just last year, but I was planning out the rest of my year this year, and I’ll be able to do all the requirements for the teacher certification program before the end of the year.”
“Good for you! We definitely need good teachers who know their subject matter. I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“Thanks. Oh, by the way, if I’m misunderstanding something, and I file for graduation but I don’t actually have all the right classes, will someone let me know?”
“Definitely. But I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
When I got home, I changed into an old pair of shorts and went to the small shed in the backyard. Our house only had a covered carport, not a locked garage, so I typically left Schuyler, my bicycle, in the shed. I had a long ride I would occasionally do around the entire perimeter of the city of Jeromeville, and with the October days getting shorter, I wanted to do my long ride again before it got too cold and gray. I had sat down once with a ruler and a map and estimated the ride at fifteen miles, and the fastest I had ever completed the ride was just a few seconds short of an hour. I rode west on Coventry Boulevard across Highway 117, worked my way through the neighborhoods of West Jeromeville, then headed back east on Fifth Street along the row of walnut trees that separated the city of Jeromeville to my left from the university’s agricultural research fields to my right. After crossing back to the east side of 117, I cut through campus, past the North Residential Area and the Rec Pavilion, and emerging into downtown Jeromeville next to the Death Star building on Third Street. Although I was trying for record time, pedaling as fast as I could, I slowed down a little bit through downtown, with its many cars, bicycles, and people. I worked my way to the Cornell Boulevard underpass, still too narrow for its traffic volume, southeast past Murder Burger and across Highway 100.
I had learned quickly as a freshman that I would feel a bit out of place in a university town like Jeromeville with its hippies and extreme politics. But now, as a senior, I was on a timeline to graduate eight short months from now, and I did not want to leave. Jeromeville had grown on me. It was the place where I found friends, and the place where I found Jesus. I had gotten involved with youth ministry at church and built meaningful connections beyond the campus bubble. Jeromeville, in all its quirkiness, was home.
I continued along the southernmost neighborhoods of Jeromeville, through the neighborhood where Eddie, John, Xander, and Lars had lived when I first met them sophomore year, and into a section of the Greenbelts where those guys had held the Man of Steel disc golf competition. I continued east all the way to Bruce Boulevard, the easternmost of Jeromeville’s north-south thoroughfares, and turned to the north. About a mile north, I crossed back over Highway 100, where a new neighborhood was under construction, rare in a city like Jeromeville where suburban sprawl is so hated. I turned west on Coventry Boulevard and rode for almost three miles, then turned into the Greenbelts of north Jeromeville, emerging on Maple Drive about half a mile north of my house. I looked at my watch when I got home: 58 minutes, 57 seconds, a new record for me.
Time moves forward. Children grow up and become university students, who then go out into the real world and have children of their own. But, although time was definitely moving forward, maybe I did not have to leave Jeromeville yet. I would still have one more year at UJ in the teacher training program, so I would be a registered student through June of 1999. If I did not get into UJ’s program, Jeromeville was close enough to commute to Capital State. After that, there were plenty of high schools in commuting distance from Jeromeville where I could work; maybe I could even teach at Jeromeville High. If I did leave Jeromeville eventually, as I would do in 2001, it would happen when the time was right, when I felt ready to move on.
Readers: Did your education and career end up happening according to your plan or projected timeline? Did you even plan these things in advance? Tell me about it in the comments.
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If you’re new here, this is not a typical post, but this is the perfect post for you. Don’t Let The Days Go By is an episodic continuing story about a university student figuring out life. I am currently on hiatus after finishing writing about Year 2. Sometime later this spring I will start writing and posting about Year 3.
This week I will be recapping and summarizing Year 2. Last week, I did the same for Year 1. Many of my current readers have not been with the story since the beginning, so this is an opportunity to catch up. I will also include links to some, but not all, of the episodes, so you can read an abridged version of the story more detailed than this recap. As always, you can start from the first episode (here) and keep clicking Next if you want to read the entire story, 88 episodes so far. If this is your first time here, and you do not want to read all 88 episodes, you may want to read the recap of Year 1 first.
I went home to Plumdale for the summer and worked in a small bookstore. I got the job through the connection that one of the two other employees was a family friend. Mom volunteered me for the job without asking me, and while I hate when she does that, this time I did not mind because I needed something to do, and getting paid would be nice. I thought at first that working in a bookstore would be fun, but the store was very slow, and not exactly my clientele.
I had lost touch with most of my high school friends, although I saw a few of them. I watched a roller hockey game with Rachel, and I saw Catherine and Renee and some of Catherine’s friends from Austria in a choir and orchestra performance that she put together. I kept in touch with a number of Jeromeville friends, mostly through writing letters, although a few of them had access to email during the summer. My cousins Rick and Miranda came to visit for a week, and I went with them, my mother, and my brother Mark to Jeromeville for a day, to show everyone around. I got to see Taylor and another guy from my freshman dorm on that day.
I turned 19 in August. The lease for my apartment began September 1, and I moved back to Jeromeville the first weekend of September. Classes did not start until the end of September, but I preferred being bored in Jeromeville to being bored in Plumdale. I spent that September going on lots of bike rides and talking to lots of girls on Internet Relay Chat. As the school year approached, I was encouraged as I started seeing familiar faces around campus and town. Megan, the resident advisor from a nearby building whom I had gotten to know (and like) the previous year, was now an RA in a building in the North Area, and she invited me to have lunch with her at the dining commons.
I had plenty of new experiences that fall. I got a job tutoring calculus for the tutoring center on campus. Also, Danielle, my friend from last year who also went to Mass at the Newman Center, finally talked me into singing in the choir at church. Another student in the choir, Heather, lived near me, so we usually carpooled to choir practice and to Mass.
Liz, another friend from last year, had invited me a few times to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship. I was hesitant , since I was Catholic and I knew that other Christians did things differently and sometimes looked down on Catholics. I was not sure that JCF would be the first place for me. But I finally decided to take her up on her invitation that fall; since I was living alone, I knew that I needed to do all I could to stay close with my friends. I quickly decided that JCF was a wonderful place for me. In addition to already having several friends who attended there, I started making new friends, and in addition to learning more about the Bible, I also started socializing with JCF people.
I started a new creative project that fall: a novel, about an 18-year-old who is not ready for high school to be over. He goes away to live with relatives and pretends to be younger so he can go through high school again and get a second chance at having a social life. I got the idea because I felt that way sometimes. As the winter went on, my classes continued, I worked on the novel, and the holidays came. I spent Thanksgiving with my family visiting the relatives in Bidwell. I spent Christmas back home in Plumdale with my family, where Mom volunteered me for something yet again without asking me. We made a last minute trip to Disneyland for the New Year, and on that trip we decided on a whim to drive by the house of an infamous celebrity.
I had still never had a girlfriend, and things never seemed to work out for me. It seemed like every girl I met always seemed to have a boyfriend. I was disappointed when Megan, the older girl who was an RA, mentioned at one point that she was dating someone. I found out something later that made me realize that Megan and I never would have worked out anyway.
While many positive things had happened so far that year, I still got discouraged and had bad days sometimes. One of those bad days happened on a Friday, the night that JCF met. As everyone trickled out of the room, I sat alone by myself. Two guys, Eddie and Xander, came over to talk to me and invited me to hang out with them afterward, along with Haley, Kristina, and Kelly, three girls who lived down the street from them. I made new friends that night, some of whom I am still friends with today.
The winter quarter was not easy academically. My classes all had their midterms on the same day. Then, a few days later, some jerk decided to steal my clothes out of the laundry. Just when despair was starting to get to me, I saw one of the JCF staff on campus; she told me exactly what it means to follow Jesus, how he died for our sins to bring us eternal life with God. I made a decision that day to follow Jesus.
With this new outlook on life, I started attending Bible study. I was learning more about my faith, really paying attention to God’s Word for the first time. My friend Melissa from high school told me in an email that she went bowling and got a score of 178, her best ever. This was exactly the same as my best bowling score ever, from the fall when I took bowling class. Melissa and I agreed to meet over spring break to see who was truly the better bowler, and that one game was legendary.
In April, the University of Jeromeville got a new ID card system. We all had to take new pictures, and mine was the worst ID card picture I have ever taken in my life. The following week, I got invited along on a road trip to Bay City with a mix of old friends, including Sarah and Caroline, and new friends, including Eddie, Xander, and Haley. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, walked uphill to an amazing view, and then drove down the coast to Moonlight Cove and slept illegally on the beach.
Finding a place to live in Jeromeville is a very stressful endeavor. I heard Pete and Charlie say that they needed a third roommate for next year, but Mike Knepper came along and took that spot just as I about ready to commit. I asked for prayer about it at Bible study a couple weeks later. Shawn, the senior who co-led the study, almost immediately mentioned that he and his current roommate Brian were staying in Jeromeville another year with no place to live yet. God answered the first part of my prayer pretty quickly, giving me roommates for next year. I had trouble finding a house to rent, since we waited so long, but I found a nice apartment on the northern edge of Jeromeville, about two miles from the campus core.
I went to the Spring Picnic again, and I saw the band Lawsuit play. I also worked the Math Club table for a while, which took away from my time to wander around and have fun, so I learned that day never to volunteer during the Spring Picnic. I saw the Olympic torch pass through Jeromeville on its way to Atlanta. I saw Sarah and a few other students from JCF get baptized. And Haley had become my newest love interest, so of course I had plenty of awkward moments in front of her, as well as in front of other girls.
I was still doing very well in classes. Being a math major, I was now taking two math classes every quarter, and started taking upper division math classes in the middle of that year. Dr. Gabby Thomas was my favorite math professor so far; she spoke clear English and felt like a normal human being more than many of my other professors. As the year ended, I participated in the Man of Steel competition, a decade-old tradition among the men of JCF involving disc golf, a hamburger eating contest, and a game of poker. I did not do too well. Fortunately, my finals went better than the Man of Steel competition, and I ended the year on a positive note, at a huge graduation party hosted by my new friends who were graduating, Brian and Shawn.
Here is the playlist of songs I used in year 2. As always, please leave comments or suggestions or questions for me. I love hearing from all of you. I’m not sure what, if anything, I’ll be doing next week; I will continue the story into Year 3 soon, but in real life, things are going to be a little crazy over the next month or two, so I might need some more time off.
Back in the 1990s, all of the hottest names in alternative rock played the Lollapalooza festival. The festival toured major cities around the United States every summer, bringing live music along with other performances and attractions. Critics called Lollapalooza an event that changed the history of music forever.
I never attended a Lollapalooza show. I did not go to big concerts back then, and I felt a little scared to do so, knowing the kind of people that an event like Lollapalooza attracted. In my life, the legacy of Lollapalooza was all of the advertising campaigns, small local events, and the like with names ending in “-palooza.” This was similar to the excessive use of the suffix “-gate” to name political scandals, after the burglary at the Watergate Building in Washington, D.C. in 1972, which led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. If something had a name ending in “-palooza,” everyone knew that it was going to be life-changing… or at least the person organizing and naming the event believed that it would be life-changing.
A little over a week ago, I had been at the final meeting of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship for this school year, talking to people afterward about the upcoming finals week. Brian Burr approached me, handing out small postcard-sized flyers. He was tall and athletic, a high jumper on the University of Jeromeville’s track team, with reddish-brown hair. He was graduating this year, and next year he would be staying in Jeromeville to work with JCF part-time and apply to medical school. Brian and I were going to share an apartment next year, along with Shawn, my current Bible study leader and one of Brian’s current housemates.
“Grad-a-palooza,” Brian said in an overly dramatic and exaggerated tone as he handed me his flyer. I took the flyer and read it.
GRADAPALOOZA! A celebration of the graduation of the gentlemen of 1640 Valdez Street Mr. Brian Burr Mr. Shawn Yang Mr. Michael Kozlovsky Mr. Daniel Conway
Saturday, June 15, 1996 6pm until whenever 1640 Valdez St., Jeromeville
“Graduation party?” I asked. “At your house?”
“Yes. Saturday, the 15th. Right after finals are done.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
In hindsight, it was not entirely necessary for me to repeat back that it was a graduation party; this was obvious from the flyer. I suppose I asked because I was surprised; I had never been invited to a college graduation party. I did not know any seniors last year.
Yesterday, Friday, was the last scheduled day for finals, but my last final had been on Thursday morning. I had spent the last two and a half days doing a fat load of nothing. I went for bike rides, I read, I worked on my novel, and I wasted a lot of time on the Internet with Usenet groups and IRC chats. It was wonderful, and so far there had not been another incident like the one a few days ago.
When I moved to Jeromeville to start school, someone gave me a camera as a going-away present. The camera then spent twenty-one months in a drawer, unused. Yesterday I remembered that I had a camera, and I bought film and batteries, so I was ready to preserve some memories from Brian and Shawn’s party tonight.
Valdez Street was in south Jeromeville, on the other side of Highway 100 from me. I drove east on Coventry Boulevard and turned right on G Street toward downtown. As I approached downtown, I drove past progressively older houses and apartment complexes; after crossing Fifth Street, G Street became a commercial corridor. It was Saturday night, and I had to drive slowly, watching for pedestrians and bicycles. At least three households of JCF students were neighbors on Valdez Street and Baron Court, and as I got to know these people more, I often wished I could be part of that community. Most of these people who were not graduating would be dispersing to other parts of Jeromeville next year, though, so a community like that may not exist next year. I at least had the new apartment with Brian and Shawn to look forward to, even if we would not be neighbors with a large group of friends.
The student population of Jeromeville was gradually emptying as students finished finals, but I still had to park farther away from Brian and Shawn’s house than usual. I could hear muffled music and conversation as I approached the house; apparently this was a big party. I walked in and looked around; music was playing, and people were talking loudly. Hopefully I would be able to hear when people talked to me.
“Greg!” Brian called out, waving, as he saw me from across the room. “Come on in!”
I had been in this house four times before, and I had never seen it this full. People were sitting on couches, in chairs, on the floor, and on the stairs. A streamer that said “CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 1996” hung from the wall.
“How’d your finals go?” Brian asked.
“I think I did well. What about you?”
“They weren’t great, but I passed.”
“Congratulations! Your ceremony was this morning?”
“Yeah. Mom and Dad and my sister came for the day. We went out to dinner, then they left about an hour ago.”
“Nice!”
“Thanks! Enjoy the party!”
Someone I did not recognize got up and walked toward the bathroom; I sat in his vacated seat. I knew about half the people here from JCF, and I recognized some other JCF people whom I did not know well. I assumed that the guys who lived here probably had other friends, so not everyone here would be from JCF. I pulled out my camera and took a few candid shots of people sitting around talking.
Kristina, a sophomore who lived around the corner on Baron Court, walked past me. “Greg!” she said. “What’s up?”
“Not much. How were finals?”
“Hard! But they’re over now! How were yours?”
“I think I did fine,” I said. “Is–” I caught myself before finishing my question, Is Haley here? Six years ago, in eighth grade, Paul Dickinson had figured out that I liked Rachelle Benedetti, and within a few days the whole school knew. Ever since then, any time I had any sort of romantic interest or crush, I treated it like a closely guarded secret which no one must ever find out. “Are any of your roommates here?” I asked instead. That way, my question would get answered without Kristina suspecting that I liked Haley.
“Kelly and Jeanette are here somewhere. Haley went home on Thursday after her last final.”
“Oh, ok.” I was a little disappointed that I would not see Haley for the next three months, but also relieved that, with Haley not here, I would have no opportunities to embarrass myself in front of her. “What are you up to this summer?” I asked.
“Taking classes. You?”
“Same. Well, one class first session. Probably just hanging out here second session. I’m going to my parents’ house next week.”
“Nice. I’ll probably see you around campus.”
“Yeah.”
I walked around, making small talk and asking people their plans for the summer. Most of the people here were not going to be in Jeromeville. That did not bode well for my hope of having a social life this summer. I knew that JCF was running one small group Bible study this summer, so that was something. And I would still be singing at church; I knew some people from church who would be around this summer.
I got up to use the bathroom. A decoration on the bathroom wall above the toilet said “We aim to please, you aim too please.” At first, my mind parsed that as “we aim to please, you aim to please” with a word misspelled. I did not understand why the phrase needed to be repeated. I did not get the joke until I flushed the toilet; the second part was supposed to say “you aim too, please,” as in “please don’t pee on the floor.” I laughed out loud at my sudden realization. Hopefully no one found it strange that someone was laughing in the bathroom.
I returned to the living room, realizing that I had not talked to Shawn Yang yet, although I probably knew him the best of all the guys who lived at this house. I saw Shawn on the couch with a middle-aged Asian couple. I approached him, and he said, “Hey, Greg. Have you met my parents yet?”
“No,” I said. “I’m Greg.”
“I’m John,” Mr. Yang said, shaking my hand. “And this is Judy.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Greg is going to be my roommate next year,” Shawn explained. “And he’s a math major too.”
“Oh you are?” Mr. Yang asked. “You gonna be a teacher too?”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” I said. “I don’t really see myself as a teacher.”
“You’re not graduating this year?”
“No. I’m a sophomore.”
“Oh, ok.”
“You guys are from Ashwood? Is that right?”
“Yeah. What about you? Where are you from?”
“Plumdale.” Without thinking, I added, “Near Gabilan and Santa Lucia.” Most people have no idea where Plumdale is.
“It’s nice out there!”
“Yeah. I’ll be in Jeromeville most of the summer, but I’m going home next week.”
After a lull in the conversation, Mr. Yang said, “It was nice meeting you!”
“You too!”
I was ready for another break from socializing, so I walked outside. It was a little before eight o’clock, and it was still light out; in Jeromeville, the sun does not set until close to nine this time of year. Two guys were throwing a Frisbee back and forth in the street, moving out of the way whenever a car approached. Eddie, Xander, Lars, and a guy I had met a couple times named Moises sat on a couch, which had been placed on the lawn for some reason.
“We’re done with another school year,” Eddie said. “Two down, two to go.”
“I know,” I replied. “I think I did pretty well on finals. How were yours?”
“It was a lot of work, but I passed.”
“Dude, mine were really tough,” Lars said.
“What are you doing this summer?” Xander asked me.
“I’m staying here. I have one class first session. When do you leave for India?”
“Two weeks. I’m a little nervous, but mostly excited! God is going to move!”
“I can’t wait to hear about it,” I said.
“Greg?” Eddie asked. “Have you decided yet if you’re going to Urbana?”
I had not decided, and now that Eddie was asking, I felt like I had dropped the ball. Intervarsity, the parent organization of Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, puts on a convention every three years, in Urbana, Illinois, for young adults to learn about missions and service opportunities around the world. The convention was the last week of the year, after Christmas. “I haven’t decided,” I said. “But I’d like to if I can make it work. I don’t know if I’m ready to go on a mission trip myself, but now that I have a lot of friends doing stuff like that, I think it would help me understand what they’re doing. Xander’s trip to India, and Melinda’s trip to Russia, and Taylor and Pete and Charlie going to Morocco with Jeromeville Covenant Church.”
“Then what are you still thinking about? If it’s money, you can apply for a scholarship through JCF. Talk to Dave and Janet.”
“It’s more just the fact that it’s overwhelming. I don’t know how to book a flight or a hotel room or anything like that. And it is a lot of money, too.”
“I know a lot of people have been wanting to travel in groups and share hotel rooms,” Eddie said. “If I hear of someone who might be able to include you, I’ll have them contact you.”
“Thanks. That would be awesome.”
“Heads up!” shouted Alex McCann, a housemate of some of the guys on the couch, as a Frisbee sailed toward us. Lars stood up and caught the Frisbee in time; then, walking away from the couch, he shouted at Alex and threw the Frisbee back at him. Eddie and Xander stood up, and Eddie said to me, “We’re gonna go throw the Frisbee. Wanna come?”
“I might later,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Moises stayed on the couch with me. “I think you should go to Urbana,” he said. “God is going to do great things through you.”
“Thanks,” I said, curious how he knew about God’s plan for my life when I pretty much just knew this guy to say hi to.
“Have you ever taken a spiritual gift assessment?” Moises asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“They handed one out at my church a few weeks ago. You answer questions about what skills you have and what you’re good at, and it tells you, like, if God has equipped you to preach or worship or pray or do administrative work. You can ask your pastor if he has one. What church do you go to?”
“Newman Center.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s the student-led Catholic church.”
“My family is Catholic,” Moises said. “My family came here from Mexico; everyone is Catholic there. But then when I became a Christian, I realized just how much Catholics have wrong. Like, Jesus died on the cross for your sins already. You don’t have to confess to a pope.” I just nodded, not wanting to argue. Moises‘ knowledge of the inner workings of the Catohlic Church must have had some shortcomings if he believed that the average Catholic confessed to His Holiness Pope John Paul II on a regular basis. Also, although I did not think about it at age 19, I have also come to learn over the years that being a busybody like Moises is not the best way to share one’s faith with others. After studying the Bible more this year, though, I had come to agree with his point that salvation came from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not through following the rituals of Catholicism alone.
By this time, it was getting dark, so I went back inside, making more small talk and helping myself to snacks on the kitchen counter. Later that night, in the living room, Eddie, Kristina, Brian, and a few others were doing some kind of silly dance. I saw Tabitha, one of the first people I knew from JCF because she was in the dorm next to mine last year, sitting on the couch with an empty seat next to her. “May I sit here?” I asked Tabitha.
“Sure,” she said. “Actually, I was looking for you. Eddie told me a few minutes ago that if you go to Urbana, you’d be interested in going in together with someone on a flight and hotel room.”
“Definitely.”
“I was going to put something together later this summer. I’ll keep you posted.”
“I’m not going for sure yet, but I know the price goes up July 1, so I want to decide for sure by then. I’ll let you know, and you keep me posted on your plans.”
“Great! Sounds good!”
I stayed at the party until after midnight. By then, much of the crowd had gone home, the music had stopped, and I was getting tired. I said my final goodnights and congratulations to Brian and Shawn, as well as to their other graduating housemates, Mike Kozlovsky and Dan Conway. These four and all the other seniors here tonight were done with college, at least done with their bachelor’s degrees. And now I was halfway there, if I finished on schedule. It was hard to believe that it had already been almost two years since Mom and Dad helped me unpack in my tiny dorm room in Building C.
As I drove home through the dark but warm Jeromeville night, I kept thinking about how my life had changed so much, not only in the time since I came to Jeromeville, but just in this school year. I had a great time at this party, and unlike my few other experiences with college parties, people here were not getting drunk. At the beginning of this school year, I did not even know that any of these people existed, except for Tabitha, and she was not in my close circle of friends yet at the time. So much had changed for the better.
I lived alone in a small studio apartment this year because I was unable to find roommates among people I knew. Early in the year, I worried that living alone would be excessively boring and lonely, but indirectly, living alone ended up being the best thing for me. It prompted me to make more of an effort to stay connected with my friends from freshman year, which led to me finally accepting Liz Williams’ invitation to come to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship. At JCF, I made so many new friends, including the people at this party, and my future roommates for junior year. And, more importantly, I learned what it really meant to follow Jesus, and how only his death on the cross brought eternal life, and hope, and inner peace.
I went straight to bed when I got home; I was tired. I would have time to pack a suitcase in the morning, and after church I would make the two and a half hour drive to my parents’ house in Plumdale. But unlike a year ago, the drive to my parents’ house would not mean the start of three months away from my friends. I was only staying there for a week this time, and I would go for another week in August after my summer class ended. For the rest of the summer, I would be here in Jeromeville. Plumdale was home, but Jeromeville was also home now.
As I drifted off to sleep, still thinking about how much life had changed during my sophomore year at UJ, I wondered what changes were in store for me in the next school year. Maybe I would find other new things to get involved with, as I had gotten involved with JCF this year. Maybe I would end up going to that Urbana convention and deciding to become a missionary. The possibilities were endless. At the time, I had no idea that the next school year would bring challenges to my faith and questions about my future. I would have to make difficult decisions. I would find myself getting involved in two new activities, one of which was not at all anything I expected to do until it happened, and the other of which I was only beginning to think about at that point. But I knew that, no matter what, with God on my side everything would work out just fine.
Don't Let The Days Go By 