Mark's Mix Tape

{Prompt: Write a story about your summer in England}

It was in May of 1986, shortly after my graduation from NC State University, that I went to a small city in northern England, to spend the summer on a student work exchange.

Ripon

The city was called Ripon. It was in North Yorkshire, and they were proud of the fact that it was the “Smallest City in England”, where city status is determined by royal charter.

Whether they were really and truly the smallest city is a matter of debate. I have found out now — with the help of the internet and artificial intelligence — that Ripon is only the second smallest city, behind Wells, in Somerset County. (Which of these two cities was smallest forty years ago can only be determined with certainty by accessing the census records.)

So who has the better claim to being the smallest city? It doesn’t really matter. I’m here to tell you that in the hearts and minds of the people of Ripon, they are the smallest. And damn proud of it.

If you go to Wikipedia, and look up Ripon, you can learn a bit about its history: how it was founded in the kingdom of Northumbria, how a monastery was built there in the time of Eata of Hexham, and how a young Saint Cuthbert once roamed its halls.

There’s a bunch of fiddle-faddle about how a timber church was replaced by a stone-built church, and it eventually grew to become the Ripon Cathedral, sitting above the banks of the River Skell.

Aerial view (the best view), of Ripon Cathedral.

And Ripon has streets with charming names, like Kirkgate and Skellgate — Blossomgate and Allhallowgate. A charming city market lies between Queen Street and Fishergate. They also have a Prison & Police museum and a Workhouse museum.

They have two public houses (pubs) with decades—if not centuries—of character — The Black Swan and The Royal Oak. The Royal Oak is where the tourists go. The Black Swan is for the rabble.

A picturesque corner of the city market.

But for all of its charm, Ripon’s main attraction is its proximity to the National Trust properties of Studley Royal Park and the ruins of Fountains Abbey. They have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites… and they are stunning.

The abbey was in operation for over 400 years — from the year 1132 when it was established, to the year 1539 when its dissolution was ordered by King Henry VIII.

Fountains Abbey (Credit: Andrew Locking-AndrewsWalks.co.uk)

I didn’t really know anything about King Henry VIII — much less the “Dissolution of the Monasteries” or the “Act of Supremacy” — when I went there in 1986.

I went to Ripon to work at another nearby attraction, the Lightwater Valley (LWV) family amusement park.

There was no danger of Lightwater Valley attracting lovers of English architecture, culture, or history. LWV was there to provide amusement, primarily to preteen tykes.

Lightwater Valley park map (1987 version)

Lightwater Valley Amusement Park

The Lightwater Valley family amusement park, at that time had only one automated ride — The Devil’s Cascade — and no roller coasters whatsoever. It was nothing like Busch Gardens or Carowinds, which were already bristling with roller coasters in the 1980s.

To me it was more like Pullen Park, in Raleigh, with a children’s train ride and a carousel. So, when I arrived, I was feeling a bit misled by its designation as an “amusement” park, which I assumed would have thrill rides.

But after a week or two, I began to appreciate the sort of amusement that Lightwater Valley provided, even with the absence of those marvels of engineering.

Lightwater Valley— a pretty relaxed place to be in 1986.

My job was relatively simple. I had to wear red overalls with the park logo, go to a particular ride, give a short set of instructions, and make sure no one got hurt.

There was one ride — a giant slide with a completely vertical drop, about 30 feet high—which only the bravest of the tiny tots would attempt. Quite a few of the kids went to the top (just like a high dive platform), looked down at the precipitous drop, and turned around.

The ones that could be persuaded to attempt the slide, usually climbed up over the edge facing backwards, holding onto the lip of the slide with their hands — bellies rubbing the surface — and slid down safely when their grip on the edge finally loosened.

A brave child on the giant slide (view from the top).

The park workers (including myself), who went down the slide several times a day at breaktime, would learn to go off the slide, standing above it and facing forward, taking a 6 inch step out into thin air, and then letting gravity take effect. It was pretty thrilling. Aside from an occasional friction burn, no one ever got hurt.

Not as scary from this angle. (Note: worker seated—top left)

There was an archery range, which was far more dangerous. Mind you, no one ever got shot with an arrow, because no one was ever allowed out on the range until every arrow had been launched.

But the real danger was when the kids were preparing to shoot. That was a nightmare. Kids would put the arrow on the “arrow rest” — the notch in the bow above the grip, and then about half the time the arrow would come off the rest when they pulled the string back, sometimes pointing toward the ground, sometimes pointing off to the side. There were many, many times when I would stop a child and reposition the arrow, before it was released, to go flipping off in any direction.

When the arrow wasn’t falling off the notch of the bow, it was often being held there with the index finger of the bow hand, a potentially catastrophic situation: If the string was released when the arrow was held against the bow, the arrow would either stay where it was or, more dangerously, slide right through the curve of the index finger with enough velocity to cause real harm.

I heard a horror story once of a kid that had to see the park’s doctor on staff, because a piece of a broken arrow had pierced right through his finger. He had to be taken to an emergency room miles away to have the splintered piece of wood removed.

Of course most of the time, the injuries were much less traumatic. Often, kids would pull back the bowstring, and it would come away from the “nock” of the arrow, effectively disconnecting the arrow from the string. When released, the bowstring would go whapping against the inside of their forearm. The arrow would go nowhere. Instead, they would get a nasty little slap on their arm.

Now… years later… whenever I see a kid with a bow and arrow, even if its a Nerf archery set, I kind of go into a Lightwater Valley rendition of Archery 101 (whether they want it or not) — describing the proper stance, proper grip, and proper technique. How to nock the rear of the arrow onto the bowstring. How to set the business end of the arrow on the arrow rest.

I have them hold the bow, bowstring, and arrow in place until everything is safe and sound — the left index finger safely away from the arrow’s shaft, the left arm slightly flexed, and all aimed in an unpopulated direction. Only then are they allowed to give the arrow its flight.

A cute aspiring archer - totally out of her depth.

Lightwater Valley had not one… not two… but three different race tracks. They had a downhill track for “Skate Karts,” a BMX bicycle track, and a mini-motorcycle track.

The skate karts had wheels like a skateboard, but were big enough to hold someone sitting down, steering with their feet. The only hard part of the job at this station was choosing the right size of the “kart” for the customer. Yellow karts for the smallest, blue karts for the biggest, and red karts for the kids in between. Very fun. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

The BMX racetrack was ahead of its time — a fantastic course. It looked very cool, but unfortunately all of the BMX bikes were kid-sized and too small for me, or any adult, to manage.

The BMX course at LWV.

The motorcycles were also pint-sized, but since they were essentially run by the throttle on the handlebars, we could easily take them for a spin with our lanky knees pointing out on both sides. We occasionally took them for a spin before the park officially opened or after it closed.

Yes, we really let children ride the motorcycles. At first, I was surprised too. But I think that the top-end speed was no more than 14 or 15 miles per hour. There were bouncy barriers all around the track. And they were so low to the ground that there was actually little danger of a really serious injury. We never had any trouble at this attraction, except for the little speedsters getting impatient at the start, while we laid out our safety rules. They couldn’t wait to hit the gas!

A real image of the mini motorcycle attraction.

There were many other attractions, kiosks, and services. There was an impressively sized playground in the shape and style of a frontier fort. There was a miniature choo-choo train. There were paddle boats and canoes.

The ‘Western’ fort play area.

There were many rides that I never really worked on, but there were lots of young folks, like me, in bright red Lightwater Valley overalls, attending to ride safety and guest satisfaction. I met them all over the park.

Some of my coworkers.

Life in Ripon

I also met a bunch of the staff on the shuttle bus each day, picking up workers from Market Square in the morning, and taking them back to Ripon in the evening.

For the first week or so, I could barely understand what they were saying. I think they could barely understand me either. They had an especially disconcerting way of dropping the “t”s in the middle of a word, a distinctly northern English way of talking which I had never heard before, even in the movies. Instead of saying “little” or “bottle”, they would say “li’-el” or “bo’-el”, with a glottal stop.

They would also omit the “H” sound at the start of a word - saying “’ouse” instead of “house”. And they used different words entirely, quite often. “Flat” instead of “apartment”. “Boot” of a car instead of “trunk” of a car. “Loo” or “WC” instead of “bathroom.”

They would root for football clubs like Manchester, Arsenal and Chelsea. They would wear long scarves and silly hats. They felt strongly about gardens and rosebushes.

They had roundabouts and hedgerows. They had footpaths that passed through sheep paddocks, crossing stone walls with a series of steps up and down, called a stile. Nursery rhymes started making sense to me — “There was a crooked man, who went a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile…”

A stile crossing a stone wall (Credit: UIG via Getty Images)

They would watch Doctor Who and Benny Hill and The Young Ones, each more irreverent than the last. And they listened to music I had never heard before — music by The Cure, The Smiths, The Housemartins, and Echo & the Bunnymen.

Poster for The Young Ones - a British comedy

One of the other staffers at Lightwater Valley, Mark Slinger, was a bit older than I was. We might have been the oldest of the lot — both out of high school and done with college. He asked me what I liked to listen to.

At the time, I was listening to Madonna (Like a Virgin), Foreigner (I Want to Know What Love Is), Simple Minds (Don’t You Forget About Me), and Tears for Fears (Everybody Wants to Rule the World). I was listening to everything on MTV, the music from John Hughes movies, and music from all the bands that played at Live Aid the year before.

He asked me if I liked The Cure.

I said, “Who’s that?”

Next thing I know, he is making me a mix tape of all the post-punk, alternative-rock English bands that I didn’t know I was missing — an honest-to-god cassette tape with a “Side 1” and a “Side 2” to play in my Walkman radio.

I came to find out, later, that he played bass and sang vocals for two years in a local band called M. E. 109. He included two of their songs on the tape.

Mark also helped me discover that there was a whole part of English life that happened in the local pub. I once told him that I couldn’t find anywhere to go for a bite to eat in town — there was no McDonald’s, Burger King, Arby’s, or Wendy’s— seemingly no fast food to be had.

So he suggested that we go to the local pub. I didn’t realize that he meant that we should go for food. I thought he was suggesting that we go for a pint or two of beer, and I figured that would be better than nothing.

When we arrived (right around dinner time) the pub was packed with people — people eating and drinking. Families with children, all sitting together at a big booth. Individuals, sitting at the bar. Other people, bustling in between. Everyone talking to everyone else. It was like a community gathering. It was unlike any bar or restaurant I had ever been to in the states.

The Black Swan, in Ripon.

Later I discovered that there was a fish and chips kiosk on one of the street corners, and a kebab kiosk on another street corner. I had never had real fish-and-chips. I had only ever had flounder or catfish, and maybe once or twice I’d had trout at a fancy restaurant. I didn’t realize that fish could be cheap and still good — light and fluffy, rather than thin and leathery.

And I didn’t know how to flavor the fish-and-chips until the vendor did it for me, adding lemon and vinegar all over the place – even on the chips – and wrapping it up in newsprint.

It was pretty good, but when I had my first “kebab” in England… words can’t describe the delicious taste that I experienced. I thought, “What is this delectable treat?” and “Why has no one ever mentioned this before?” It was a revelation. From then on, I made many trips down Kirkgate road to have a Shawarma kebab.

I was living in a flat in town, provided to me free of charge, through the father of a close friend.

When I arrived, there was a very brief orientation, but I must have missed the part that told me how to get the hot water working. I didn’t know anything about lighting the pilot light on a hot water heater, and I was too young and embarrassed to ask the owner for help.

Consequently, I had to take a shivering shower in cold water, getting just wet enough to soap up and rinse off. Then I would scurry from the shower to a nice warm (in comparison) bath towel, dry off, and jump under the bed covers for warmth. I kept taking cold showers for two or three months, until the amusement park closed for the summer, and my stay in Ripon came to an end.

Rambling

By the time I left Ripon, I had grown fond of all the quirky things that England’s smallest city had to offer. I loved the Mother Goose quality of the English countryside. I loved the glottal stop of the Yorkshire dialect. I loved riding mini-motorcycles, and sliding off of 30 foot slides at Lightwater Valley.

I loved Chelsea FC, Doctor Who, and the Smiths. I loved kebabs made at the corner of Kirkgate, or dinner and a pint at the Black Swan on Westgate. I even loved cold showers a little bit.

I loved the way the English had of turning work and drudgery into fodder for satirical comedy and camaraderie.

But I had ambition, like most Americans. I wanted to return to the States, go to medical school, and make something of myself.

When it came time to leave, I had only to make my way to an international airport to get back, but I decided to extend my stay a few weeks, and see a bit more of the country. I decided to see a bit of the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, Edinburgh, London, and Paris before flying out of Amsterdam.

So I packed my meager belongings into a backpack, locked the door to my flat and headed west out of the smallest city in England.

First, I passed by Fountains Abbey and the Studley Royal water gardens that I had seen once before.

The ruins of Fountains Abbey.

I walked across the Yorkshire Dales towards Kilnsey and the Tennants Arms Hotel, where a rocky crag juts out above the road.

The Tennants Arm Hotel in the Yorkshire Dales.

I walked cautiously down beside the waterfall at the Gordale Scar, dangerously top-heavy from a fully stuffed backpack.

Gordale Scar.

I walked past Malham Cove, a unique limestone formation — surprisingly beautiful.

Malham Cove.

I hitch-hiked to Windermere and Grasmere, the homes of Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth, in the Lake District.

English countryside.

From there, I hiked past Angle Tarn to the cloud covered peak of Great Gable, where I searched for the footpath that would take me north.

A valley in the Lake District.

I hiked down the ridge of Maiden Moor towards Derwentwater and Keswick.

Derwentwater.

And then I hitch-hiked again, riding with a salesman, up to Edinburgh, Scotland. I walked the Royal Mile, from Edinburgh Castle to the gates of the Queen’s Royal Palace.

Queen’s Royal Palace gates.

I went to London, where I saw Buckingham Palace, Madame Tussaud’s, London Tower, and the buskers in Covent Garden for the very first time.

Covent Garden.

I took the hovercraft from England to France.

The English hovercraft.

And I went to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower.

View from the Eiffel Tower.

…the Bois de Boulogne,

Bois de Boulogne

…the Pompidou Centre,

The Pompidou Center.

…and cafés, all over the city.

La Grande Cascade

I had delicious saucy French food prepared by fellow travelers at the Auberge de Jeunesse. And then I left for the airport at Amsterdam, where I slept in the terminal before my morning flight. I saw very little of the Netherlands.

Mark’s Mix Tape

I returned to an ordinary job in Raleigh, working in the deli department of a neighborhood grocery store, waiting to see if I could get in to medical school.

I made it onto the waiting list for three medical schools— Duke, Emory, and the University of Virginia.

Then, I took a better job with Raleigh Parks and Recreation as a pool manager.

And just about when I had given up hope of going to medical school at all, I received a letter of acceptance to Duke Medical School.

Every now and then, I would pull out a cassette tape from England — the one that I carried with me through the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, and half of western Europe. I would play Side 1… pull it out and flip it over… and play Side 2.

I did that off and on until the names of the songs and the artists, written with a blue ball-point pen, began to fade. So I rewrote the names with a gel pen, over the original printing, as best as I could make them out.

CDs came into vogue, and my CD collection began to swell. My favorite cassette tapes were relegated to a vinyl case in a corner of the closet.

Still… every now and then I could play the Mark’s mix tape in my old car stereo system, the one with both a CD player and a cassette tape player.

Eventually they didn’t sell cars with tape players anymore. It even became harder to find cars that could play CDs. WAV files and MP3 files became popular with the advent of smartphones and email.

Only with a special effort could I find a functioning tape player — a relic from the 80s — and put in my original mix tape from Ripon, North Yorkshire.

Then I heard about something called a “playlist”. There was a movie called “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” in 2008, where a digital lineup of songs (burnt onto a CD) was the central focus. It sounded a lot like a mix tape.

And in 2012, in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, Charlie’s mix-tape (and his music) is front and center, reminding me of the music of the 80s, and the weird melancholy beauty of alternative rock — reminding me of my own unique mix tape.

My keepsake mix tape was in danger of becoming unplayable, and all mix tapes were in danger of becoming obsolete. But digital playlists were having a moment in the cultural zeitgeist; it seemed like it was time to join the party.

I decided to convert Mark’s mix tape to a digital format. My love for English alternative rock was fully confirmed. I created a playlist where the music is pretty much intact, except for the long pause between Side 1 and Side 2. It lives in my iPhone.

Whenever I play it, I remember the summer I spent in England’s smallest town, at the hokiest amusement park I had ever seen, learning to love English culture.

A contented Lightwater Valley worker, on a break.

Appendix I - Mark’s Mix Tape.

Side 1:
Happy Hour - The Housemartins
We’re Not Deep - The Housemartins
Boys Don’t Cry - The Cure
The Lovecats - The Cure
Panic - The Smiths
Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths
The Killing Moon - Echo & The Bunnymen
Rain - The Cult
Warrior - M. E. 109
Lessons in Love - Level 42

Side 2:
Sheep - The Housemartins
Over There - The Housemartins
In Between Days - The Cure
What Difference Does It Make? - The Smiths
Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now - The Smiths
Seven Seas - Echo & The Bunnymen
Bring on the Dancing Horses - Echo & The Bunnymen
Brand New Friend - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
Lost Weekend - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
Calling All the Heroes - It Bites
Falling in Love with a Robot (Mr 1984) - M. E. 109
Throwing My Baby Out with the Bathwater - Tenpole Tudor
Memories - Elvis Presley.

A Beautiful Dream

{Prompt: Write a story about your study abroad experience at Flinders University}

Once upon a time, when I was 21 years old, I had a little too much to drink on a pub crawl in downtown Adelaide — a South Australian city with a tavern on every corner, most of them selling Coopers Pale Ale, with the yeasty dregs in the bottom of the bottle. And if you wandered out into the street, local vendors would sell you the most amazing comfort food of all time — “pie floaters”, which are hot mincemeat pies served in a thick pea soup.

I was attending Flinders University at the time, and after a beer with my Aussie mates, at one pub… and then another… and another, I could tell that I was not going to make it to the end of the crawl. I was losing the battle to maintain any semblance of sobriety. So I decided to leave the pubs and go for a little ride away from the city.

While on exchange at Flinders and living in University Hall (Uni Hall), I had befriended a number of Australians, Malaysians, and Western Samoans. I had been invited to join a group of my Samoan friends at a house party that was being held off campus, near Brighton Beach… or was it Glenelg? I couldn’t remember the exact location, but it was in a neighborhood of rolling grass-covered dunes near the cool climate beaches, southwest of town.

With all the concentration I could muster (which was not much, I should say) I boarded the tram to Glenelg — or was it a bus to Brighton Beach? My thoughts were slow and muddled, but I boarded the vehicle, and I sat silently — inebriated, enjoying the jostling of the tram (or bus) and watching the city pass by.

The Tram and the War Memorial at Glenelg.

I got off in the neighborhood I thought was right, heading for the address I had been given. Small hiccup in my plan — I didn’t have the full address. I only had the street name. You see, this was not a well-thought-out plan. It was more like an idea for a plan that danced out of my head while I was having my last beer at the pub.

Well, I did what any well-mannered, but pleasantly sloshed American exchange student would do when lost in the suburbs of a foreign country. I started knocking on doors.

After two errant attempts, and before my drunken optimism had faded, a helpful homeowner pointed me in the right direction — surprisingly close by. And a good thing too, because by this time I was getting wobbly, walking up and down the streets of the subdivision.

At the next door — thankfully, the last — I was welcomed by the hosts of the Samoan gathering — friends of my Samoan friends at the dorm. As I made my way in, I was greeted with a mixture of amazement and amusement—surprise at my unexpected arrival, and congratulatory laughter at the fine state of my intoxication.

I was ushered out to the back yard, where all the islanders were gathered to talk, eat, dance, and play. It may be the finest party I’ve ever attended, but how can I say? I was so utterly inebriated that the whole experience was like a dream.

I don’t remember how the party ended or how I got home, but I must have had help. I was in no fit state to be navigating around the city. Somehow, someone made sure that I got back to my dormitory room safely and soundly.

Photographic proof that I was really there.

My First Trimester

This was far from my only experience with alcohol in Australia. After all, South Australia — the Barossa Valley, in particular — is considered the wine capital of the nation. German immigrants began successfully growing grapes there when they settled the valley in the 1800s.

Libations were provided from the moment I arrived. There were orientation activities accompanied by boxes of South Australian wine.

For example, we had the Uni Hall Olympics. It featured several strange and amusing activities. In one of them, the contestant had to eat a sleeve of Club crackers (20 or 30 of them), then whistle “Waltzing Matilda”, as quickly as possible. I’m a good whistler, but it’s nearly impossible to whistle a note without any saliva. Half the time, little flakes of cracker were being blown out instead.

After the events were tabulated, and winners declared, we all sat in the courtyard to enjoy wine, Australian burgers, and leftover club crackers.

The three-legged race at the Uni Hall Olympics.

Another orientation week activity was a scavenger hunt, which included finding items as far-flung and politically incorrect as an ounce of “short and curly” hairs (pubic hairs), a chair from an Italian restaurant café, and a homeless person. This was a no-holds-barred scavenger hunt.

By the time my team had found the closest Italian restaurant, the staff of the establishment had nearly come to blows with an earlier team that was trying to take one of their chairs. They regarded us with such hostility, that we abandoned any plans of acquiring any more of their furniture.

The team that brought the homeless drifter to the tallying point won the day, as he was worth nearly as much (in points) as the rest of the list combined. We all sat down in the courtyard, with our new homeless friend, to recount our adventures with Solo Cups of beer and wine.

Thankfully, there was no drinking on the car rally later that week — the week of orientation. Everyone was sober, and I was merely a passenger as the route took us up into the Flinders Mountain Range, reputedly one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. There I saw and heard my first kookaburra, in the wild, up in a eucalyptus tree, chattering away. My team must have fallen behind, as I stood and stared at the kookaburra, and he stared at me through the side of one eye.

The colorful Kookaburra

Although there was no drinking during the road rally, alcoholic drinks were ubiquitous on campus. Gin and tonics were served at a medical school function. Black Russians were poured for guests at an informal pool party at the School of Education — a party that ran into the evening. At Uni Hall, fellow students frequently opened their doors, and folks would gather for wine and cheese, like moths to a flame. I met a lot of my Flinders University friends that way.

There was even a pub on the edge of the university campus, only a short walk across a pedestrian bridge from Uni hall. That’s where I first learned the difference between a pint and a half-pint of beer.

I must have had a pint (or two) too many on one occasion when I went there with my friends. I was having such a good time fueled by cold glasses of frothy ale, that I got tipsy and fell off of my seat smack-dab onto the floor. I couldn’t figure out why or how the floor had come up to thump me, until I realized that it was the other way around. I started to laugh, and I couldn’t stop. Pretty soon, everyone was laughing with me.

Next thing I remember, I’m waking up, shivering in my dorm room, as the sun comes peeping through my open window. There’s a scrape on my leg and I’m still wearing my clothes from the night before. Later I learned that I scraped my leg as I crawled in the window when I couldn’t find my keys. I didn’t remember a thing between the pub and my bunk. I had been black-out drunk.

Keepsake from the Flinders University Hall - 1985

First Break

I began to rethink the wisdom of free-flowing alcohol after the varsity basketball tournament at Swan Hill, which took place during the first break in the trimester academic calendar. This competition attracted university basketball teams from all over the country — nominally “Varsity” teams, but in reality, as far as skill level, they were more comparable to intramural or club teams in America.

A week was set aside for fun and competition in the historic city of Swan Hill, which was first established in 1836. It was also a stop on the famous Burke and Wills expedition, which aimed to cross the continent in 1860.

The festivities for the basketball competition started off with dinner and an outdoor keg party. I vaguely remember some sort of beer chugging competition, which I lustily joined, but I got so sadly drunk that I literally drank myself under the table. After too much beer, too quickly consumed, my stomach did a backflip, and I dove under the table and tablecloth to privately regurgitate its contents on the floor.

And the beer drinking in Swan Hill didn’t stop all week. But I stopped after a couple of days. I was badly hungover. I was so groggy and tired that I struggled to run up and down the court during play. Our team was already of dubious quality, but the quality of my play in the tourney was unusually poor. I paid the price on the court for the off court bacchanalia. Needless to say, it didn’t go well, and we didn’t win.

The Swan Hill Basketball Intervarsity tourney brochure.

Second Trimester:

After the break, I returned to Adelaide as a more cautious drinker. I think it was in the second trimester (Australia’s winter) that I began to enjoy more of Australian culture and less of the Australian spirits.

I watched Australian football (Australian “footy”) which reminded me of a childhood game called “Smear the queer” (It was not a very accepting time to be gay.) In that game we ran around trying to tackle anyone with the ball or we tried to run around with the ball evading tackles. We could toss the ball away any time we wanted, depending on our fear of (or our attraction to) getting physically pummeled. Australian footy was just the same. It reminded me of a bunch of school children (dressed in rugby shirts) all trying to kill the one with the ball.

A moment of pure aggression in Australian Footy.

Cricket, by comparison, was very dignified. No direct physical contact was required. But the game could go on for hours… even days. I took a weekend, once, and vowed to myself to watch a game from beginning to end. It was a lot like watching a PGA golf match — beautiful green playing surfaces, men in spiffy uniforms, and the hushed voices of the TV announcers. In cricket, occasionally, there was the crack of a bat, and two players would run back and forth. Occasionally there was exultant celebration when the bowler slipped the ball by and the bails of the wicket went flying.

A swing and a miss.

I sometimes left the dormitory and went to the Adelaide Festival Center downtown, a boxy white modern building on the outside, but a beautiful auditorium with red velvet seats on the inside.

I went to a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, when Topol was performing, reviving his role (from the movie version). I was sitting in the upper balcony, so whenever “Tevye” had a monologue with God, it was like he was talking straight to me. I’ve probably seen the play five more times since then.

And I saw my first ballet at the Festival Center, a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I was by myself, but I shared a box with some other ticket holders, a mother and her daughter. They seemed delighted to see all the beautiful costumes, and they were themselves beautifully dressed. I felt a bit like the ugly duckling in the room, as I was not very well dressed (because the wardrobe I had packed was quite small). But I was a student, and the folks in Australia didn’t care. The mother and daughter were happy to have me.

Interior of the Adelaide Festival Center

Second Break

In late August, we had our second break in the academic calendar. This time I arranged to take a solo rail trip around the East Coast of Australia, from Adelaide to Cairns, with stops in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane. That was about 2600 miles one way, which, to put it in perspective, is about the length of Interstate Highway 40 across America — from Wilmington, NC, to Barstow, CA. I spent about 3 days on board the train, each way, so my stops at each city were pretty brief.

In Melbourne, I went off, quickly, to see the animals in the Melbourne Zoo, including the Tasmanian Devil, the Koalas, and the Wallabies. And I ran over to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the paintings by the Australian Impressionists of the Heidelberg School — Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, and Frederick McCubbin — still my favorite works of art.

A Break Away! - by Tom Roberts

In Sydney, I made a beeline for the National Opera House and Sydney Harbour. I don’t know if I even stopped for food. I saw the iconic building from the shore, but all the pictures of it look better from the water. I simply didn’t have time (or the money) for a boat ride.

Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In Brisbane, I remember seeing poinsettias growing next to the railway platform, seemingly in the wild. I sped out to the beach and spent a couple of hours looking at the row of high-rise hotels next to the Pacific Ocean on the Gold Coast. I had never seen anything like it before.

The Gold Coast, near Brisbane.

In Cairns, I must have spent a night or two, because I made two excursions, one to Green Island and one to the Kuranda National Park. In 1985, when I went to Green Island, you were allowed to go out and walk on the Great Barrier Reef, at low tide. That’s something that I would never do today, but back then I spent a couple of hours walking around looking at all the critters in the tide pools, and then I took the tour boat back to the city.

Green Island—a little blip of land on the Great Barrier Reef.

I took a train or a tour bus up Barron Gorge to see the Barron Falls, at the edge of Kuranda National Park. It was a chance to see the tropical rain forest, well above the Tropic of Capricorn. I was only there for an hour or two before I had to head back to the train station. I haven’t the foggiest idea what the city of Cairns was like. I can’t remember a thing besides the reef and the rain forest. For that matter, I saw most of Australia from the window of a passenger car.

A train in Australia.

Third Trimester

Adelaide held a Formula 1 Grand Prix in October that year. The whole town was excited. I didn’t go to the race. I was either busy, or I was saving my money. Coming from North Carolina, the birthplace of NASCAR, the Formula 1 race was as foreign to me as cricket or footie—so I watched on TV.

Then came Melbourne Cup Day— a day when all of Australia stays home to watch a horse race. I suppose it is a little like the Kentucky Derby, but I never skipped school or stayed home to watch the Kentucky Derby.

For me, it seemed more like the ACC men’s basketball tournament, when everyone in North Carolina had free license to leave work early, or bring in a portable radio or portable TV to watch the game (in the days before smartphones and tablets) —a day to watch their favorite team try to get into the NCAA. I tried to explain the frenzy surrounding the ACC tournament to my Australian friends, but they just didn’t get it.

On November 5th, 1985, What a Nuisance won the Melbourne Cup by a nose over Koiro Corrie May. I couldn’t have cared less.

An exciting moment at the Flemington racecourse.

My Friends

While I was staying at University Hall, taking classes at Flinders University, I met students from all over the world, many from Australia, Malaysia and Western Samoa.

One of my Australian friends, Graeme Stevens, took me up to Port Augusta to see what life was like on the edge of the Australian Outback. I just remember riding around in a tiny little sport-utility vehicle, like a miniature Jeep.

Once, one of my Malaysian friends, Juliana Teoh Suan, tried to explain to me the ‘allegory of the cave’ in Plato’s Republic, and why it matters today. She loved to learn. So did I, but I’ve practically forgotten all of the classes I took at Flinders. (Australian Multiculturalism was one of them.)

But I’ll never forget their insistence on proper bibliographic format. And taking oral exams was no joke. America certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on rigorous education.

Juliana and I enjoying a break from classes.

My Samoan friends gave me a blue lavalava with a white and yellow print. It’s the traditional wrap-around skirt worn by Samoan men. They had to show me how it was worn — how to wrap it around, fold it over, and tuck it in. I still wear it with pride — just not in public.

In return for all the kind gifts and conversations, I wanted to share a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with them before I went home. So in November of 1985, I started making plans (with another American exchange student) to host a Thanksgiving dinner, inviting all of our friends.

Thanksgiving in Adelaide

We were very fortunate, because the University Hall had its own cafeteria and a small cafeteria staff. There was a male chef who had once worked in a branch of military service. He was amazing. His food was delicious and it came out like clockwork. There were two young women, who served the cafeteria-style meals, who always seemed friendly (not like the cafeteria workers I had known when I was growing up.) I had gotten to know them well enough to ask if it was possible—would they prepare a special meal for an American-style Thanksgiving dinner?

First I had to explain what kind of food is traditionally served for Thanksgiving — not just any food — it had to be some relatively unique American food. Not your typical Australian grub, or the mix of international food that was normally served. I asked if they could cook turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, and all the fixin’s.

And they agreed!

So, on November 25th, 1985, we set up one very long table — enough for 20 or 30 people — in the upper recreation room of the cafeteria/common area. One end of the table held my friends, and the other end of the table held the friends of my American compatriot. Before dinner began, we pulled up a few more chairs for the kitchen staff, who had made it all possible. They gave us a look of confusion, but we urged them to sit down with us and enjoy the meal together. So they joined us at the table.

Next, I tried to explain what Thanksgiving was all about — mostly filling your belly to the gills, watching football, and going into a turkey coma. I may have mentioned a little about the settling of America and the harvest celebration with both Pilgrims and Natives.

But mainly, I told them, it was a day to be thankful… first and foremost… a day to be thankful for our friends and family.

As it turns out, this was my original, first, and only Friendsgiving, way before the term had ever been coined.

It was possibly the best Thanksgiving I ever had. And I’ve had some good ones. I remember with fondness the Thanksgivings that we had at the farm in Stanley, Virginia, which set my expectations so high.

And every year, now our kitchen is humming with activity, as Dianne, Jasmine, Samantha, and I try to create something better than ever before, and our table is covered with both American and Middle Eastern food.

But that particular Thanksgiving was special, because I was the host — a stranger in a strange land. I was giving back a little of the love and sustenance that had been given to me throughout the year.

I was truly grateful to be sitting with friends who had been so good to me — friends who had kept me from getting homesick throughout the year.

Friends who would tolerate my noodling with a used saxophone in my dorm room down the hall.

Friends who would light up with a smile if I joined the group of them for wine and cheese.

Friends who would take me back to my dorm room window, and help me climb in when I was black-out drunk.

Friends who would talk about philosophy and world affairs… or just about anything… on the steps to campus.

Friends who would let me join their Samoan house party, when I just wandered in off the street.

So we all sat down and devoured our Thanksgiving meal, but I did make one concession to Australian cuisine that evening. We had one or two boxes of Barossa Valley wine on hand, and we drank it all up.

It was like a beautiful dream.

Picture from a Barossa Valley wine tasting ad.

Epilogue - The End of the Year

It was only a matter of days before the academic year ended for all of us. We all went our separate ways. I went back to America, and I took one of my hall-mates with me, Andrew Chang. He was going to visit a friend of his at Duke University during the Australian summer. After stopping to see O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, and then landing in San Francisco, California, we drove back to North Carolina together — my first cross-country road trip.

Before I left, some of my disreputable Australian friends gave me a present that was as long as a yardstick, awkwardly wrapped in gift paper. It was a street sign for “Australia Ave.” They had freed from its stationary sign post — a real street sign, pilfered from the streets of Adelaide, South Australia. Now that’s love.

I had to somehow stuff it into an already overstuffed suitcase. I think it just barely fit, next to the souvenir green and yellow Aussie cricket bat, ball, and gloves. It’s surprising what you could pass through airport security back in the 80s.

Appendix I - Stops on the way home - December 1985

Oahu - Waikiki. Waimea Bay. Nu’uanu Pali lookout.
San Francisco - Lombard Street. Bot. Gardens. Golden Gate Br.
San Simeon - Hearst Castle
Los Angeles - Disneyland. La Brea Tar Pits
Mojave National Preserve.
Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hoover Dam.
Grand Canyon National Park.
Gallup, New Mexico.
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Southfork Ranch from the Dallas TV show.
Fort Worth Stockyards.
Subsequent route has since been forgotten.

Life is Messy

{Prompt: Write a story about your time in college at NC State}

My life as an undergraduate student was a bit of a mess.

For one thing, I started off by majoring in Engineering at Vanderbilt University. I felt, after half a semester, that I wasn’t in the right field or the right university, and so I transferred to N. C. State University, back in my home town, and I changed my major to Pre-medical (Zoology).

Side Hustles

For another thing, I was working a variety of part-time jobs (both in college and medical school).

I worked at Burger King during the summer right after high school, and I didn’t know much about customer service. Once, I had the audacity to ask some seated customers to lift up their feet so I could sweep under their table. The manager gave me an earful, but he didn’t fire me. He needed workers to assemble the burgers — flame-grilled burgers.

Later, I worked at Arby’s, during the summer of 1983. We used to make ourselves miniature “Jamocha” shakes and miniature “Super” roast beef sandwiches for lunch (sandwiches with Arby’s barbecue sauce), but we never paid for them. Everyone did it.

Everything was great until management hired a firm to conduct polygraph (lie-detector) exams on everyone, supposedly because of a missing bank deposit. I didn’t really worry, because I knew nothing about any misappropriation of funds, but I discovered that it didn’t matter — it was really a ploy to screen out any and all employee misbehavior.

It was the most personally intrusive experience that I had ever had. Basically it was an interrogation, including questions along the lines of, “Have you ever done anything wrong?” and “What else should we know?” I felt like a criminal. Even worse, I felt like a sinner — the scourge of society.

I’ll never take a polygraph again if I can help it. No… Let me rephrase that… I’ll never take a polygraph again. Period.

An image capturing the gist of my polygraph experience.

Despite my questionable ethics, I got a job working for Raleigh Parks & Recreation at Pullen Park pool, and then at Optimist Park pool, and later at Biltmore Park as the pool manager. (I write about this in another story.)

And before I went to medical school, I spent about 8 months working at Harris Teeter grocery store in the deli department.

Living Quarters

My odd jobs weren’t the only things in flux. My living quarters kept changing as well. I started in a single room at a dorm at Vanderbilt, but when I transferred to State, I ended up sharing a room… with the worst roommate in the world. This fellow was on the wrestling team at NC State, and he had virtually zero interest in his classwork. I honestly don’t know if he even took any classes. He never seemed to do any homework, and he was a total ‘wanker’ (to borrow a bit of British slang). He was dating two girls at the same time, and asking me to cover for him. After one semester with him, I decided it was better to live at home and commute.

That was also the wrong decision. The next semester — the Fall of 1983 — I had an Advanced Lifesaving class first thing in the morning. Early in the morning. I found myself driving to class and rushing to get changed and jump into the pool, sometimes with only a meager breakfast… or no breakfast at all.

We once had a test that required us to tread water for a set period of time, with our hands in the air. I think I nearly drowned myself, because I was running on fumes.

As the weather got colder, and the days got shorter, it got harder and harder to make that trek up Oberlin Road first thing in the morning.

Treading water test - the worst!

So the following semester, I applied for a room in the International dorm — Alexander Hall. Like Turlington, it was right in the middle of campus — no more commuting from miles away, parking in a “fringe” parking lot, running to classrooms all over campus, and sleeping between classes on the sofas in the student union.

And it seemed unlikely that I would be rooming with a buffoon or a scoundrel. As it turns out, my first roommate, from China, could barely speak English. He ended up hanging out mostly with his friends. And I hung out with my friends all around the dorm.

Alexander Hall (credit: Dreamstime.com)

International Relations

In 1984 (Spring and Fall), I made some good friends at Alexander Hall, and my undergraduate experience started to run a little more smoothly. I met folks from India (Shantanu, Paru, and Srini) and France (Michel and René).

Srini and I became close friends, because he was so outgoing and energetic, but also savvy and supportive. (Our lives became intertwined as we both stayed in Raleigh after graduating from NC State. He lived in my house for a while when I was overseas, and I lived in his house for a while with his family when I returned. More on that later.)

I first learned to play volleyball at NC State, and we put together a pretty good indoor volleyball team for Alexander Dorm in intramurals. We had good players from abroad including Michel, Rene, and Srini. And then there was me, a novice. All I had to do was try to pass the ball halfway straight, and do a little blocking. Our team easily won the league, while my volleyball skills improved.

I met a girl from England, named Nooshin Ansari. She and her father came originally from Iran, and she was a member of the Baha’i Faith, as I discovered. While living in England, she enrolled at Plymouth Polytechnic, and attended NC State on a student exchange. She was attracted to me, and I was attracted to her. Within a few weeks we were going steady.

Nooshin Ansari

While I was dating Nooshin, Srini was dating Jane Matthews, a girl from Stokesdale, North Carolina, who was majoring in textiles. She was a wonderful person, and just as Southern as I was. The four of us would go out together, to restaurants like Two Brothers or Two Guys (right next door) on Hillsborough Street. (Both of their walls were covered with N.C. State athletic memorabilia.) We probably went bowling once or twice at the bowling alley, on the same block.

We would go see the second run movies for free with other students at Stewart Theater on campus, or go watch the new releases, out in the city, at Mission Valley or at Southpoint Mall. This was in 1984, before Blockbuster had even opened — before Redbox and Netflix had their day in the sun. Going out for a movie was the thing to do. You paid $3.50 apiece (in cash, at the window), got some soda and some snacks, and went looking for a group of comfy seats in the dimly lit auditorium.

A scene from Purple Rain - released in 1984

Or we would hang out in the basement of Alexander, where international dinners sometimes took place. Usually there was a little slideshow or a presentation by a member of that country, and then some delicious ethnic food was served.

Speaking of dinner—we probably went to the Madrigal dinner together, at one of the banquet halls in the student union. It was put on by students in the drama department.

Life was pretty good. And then I had to go and spoil it by going off on an international student exchange.

Going Abroad

Let me explain. NC State had an office for students applying to go overseas on an international student exchange. I’m pretty sure I found this office and filled out an application for the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) within months of my arrival on campus in 1983. I had barely arrived on North Carolina soil before I was looking for a way to leave again.

Although my application was in order and met all the criteria, my request for an exchange was denied. Folks from the office kindly met with me, sympathetic to my interest in a study abroad, but as they explained, I had only been at NC State for a semester. I should try again later.

An International Student ID Card

So a year later, I applied again. I was applying to go study in Australia, where the school year is from February to November, so my application was due in October (1984), more or less. I was probably lured to Australia by my childhood infatuation with Olivia Newton-John. Or maybe I was just looking for an English-speaking country with marsupials on the other side of the world. I really had no good reason to go on a student exchange program. I just wanted adventure.

This time my application was approved. And, as it turned out, Australia had a trimester schedule of classes, so I would not be able to easily go for one semester. I would have to go for a whole year. “Fantastic,” I thought.

One more catch — the classes would only be able to count as electives. I had to do all of the required (Biology and Zoology) courses for my degree on campus at NC State — a capricious and self-serving rule, in my mind. Could I do it and still graduate on time? As it turns out, I could.

Fortunately, I had been packing my semesters with 15 to 18 credit hours of courses. I was already ahead of schedule. I could afford to take a year of “elective” classes in Australia.

I found this all out in November of 1984— that I had been accepted to attend Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, and I would be going for the full school year, from February to November of 1985. I would have to fly to the other side of the world in just about two months.

Departure

I was thinking about all these things, when I went out to dinner with my girlfriend, Nooshin, and my friends, Srini and Jane. We were all talking about other things — nothing in particular — before a lull in the conversation. So then I piped up and told them that I had just heard back from the office for international student exchange.

Nooshin gave me a quizzical look and said, “I didn’t know you had applied for a student exchange.”

Have you ever thought, “Surely, I mentioned that.” or “Didn’t I say that out loud?” or “I thought everyone knew.” Those thoughts went through my head, as I searched for the right words to say.

“Didn’t I tell you?” I said.

“No,” she said, with eyebrows raised.

[But wait, it gets worse.]

I apologized profusely for my egocentric idiocy.

Then she asked, “So when do you go?” She’s wondering if I will still be around in the Spring semester — her last semester in the States.

“I have to leave in January.”

Another look of bafflement.

“So where are you going?” she said. She’s wondering if I am going to England, her home country.

“It’s in South Australia… Adelaide, South Australia… For nine months.”

Now, she herself is speechless.

This really happened. I’m not making it up.

Needless to say, Nooshin and I had a candid discussion after that, about my plans (or lack thereof), and about my communication skills. We worked it out to a degree, but I kind of left her in a state of uncertainty. I must have promised to see her again and promised to write.

But at the time, in January of 1985, I left her, my friends, and my family behind, and I went off to spend a year in Australia. It wasn’t the first time — I did the same thing in 1980, when I went to the NC School of Science and Math in Durham. And it wasn’t the last time — I did it again when I took a year off from Duke Med to go to the UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill.

But it was certainly the most impertinent parting, for the offhanded way that I treated Nooshin — someone who probably expected much more from me — someone who deserved better.

Down Under

Flinders University and Australia in 1985 were everything that I imagined, and more. I made friends, not only from Australia but also from Malaysia and Western Samoa—two other countries that sent students to Australian universities.

I won’t go into the details here (I write about it elsewhere), but I learned to appreciate Australian “Footy” and cricket, I enjoyed Foster’s Ale and Pie Floaters, I played “varsity” basketball, I walked on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland, and I drank more than I should have (but less than most Aussies).

Before I returned, I promised myself that I would go back, not only to Australia, but to Malaysia, and Western Samoa, as well.

Flinders University - Adelaide, South Australia

Challenger

When I did return to NC State, in 1986, everything had changed. I returned to Alexander Hall, but Nooshin had returned to England, Srini and Jane were no longer dating, and there was an entirely new group of students living in my old dorm.

On January 28, I was just walking around the hall, passing time. Somewhere on the first floor a door was open and a TV was on. Someone I knew was watching the preparations for the launch of the Space Shuttle, Challenger, so I popped in to see if the launch would actually happen. It had been delayed twice already.

NASA was going to send Krista McAuliffe into space — the first teacher in space. She’d been in the news for weeks. So I thought I’d take a moment to watch a little bit of history in the making.

We heard a bit of commentary about the unseasonably cold weather. Some discussion of the previously scrubbed launches — the day before… and the day before that. Color commentary. Nothing special.

And then the launch began. It was spectacular. Massive jets of rocket fuel propelling the shuttle skyward. Bird’s-eye views of the rocket launch, with support arms from the towers, falling away.

Pretty soon the shuttle was nothing but a speck at the end of a long plume of propellant in the clear blue sky.

But then, the disaster occurred — an explosion with scattering plumes of smoke and projectiles spiraling across the atmosphere — erratic trails of debris.

Explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986

For a few seconds, unaware of the spectacle on the screen, the announcer continued reading from his script, announcing the altitude of the shuttle that was no longer there—anticipating the next booster release.

And then the commentary paused… for several seconds.

Then a new kind of commentary commenced.

“Wait a moment. I think there’s been an explosion… Is that possible?”

And a moment later,“I don’t see how anyone could have survived such a blast.”

No one knew if they were living or dead.

We hoped… of course, we hoped… they survived, in the capsule — that they would be rescued at sea. But as the day unfolded, it became clear that they all had perished. Six American astronauts and one civilian payload specialist — a teacher turned astronaut, named Christa McAuliffe.

Our faith in NASA, and our memories of their stunning achievements in the race for the moon, were erased that day — replaced by horror and sadness.

Summer Holiday

While I completed my degree at NC State in 1986, I took advantage once more of my relationship with the student exchange office, by applying for a work exchange in England in the summer. It would be part work, part holiday.

I had kept in touch with Nooshin, mostly by sending letters by airmail, and she smoothed out the road for me, making it easy for me to find a job at an amusement park, with lodging near her home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

So off I went, first to see her in Plymouth, where she was attending Plymouth Polytechnic University and then to North Yorkshire. I joined her at her “flat” near campus, where we hugged—trying to reconnect.

On a shelf, I noticed a video in her small collection, called Summer Holiday, with someone named Cliff Richard.

“Who’s Cliff Richard?”, I said.

“You don’t know who Cliff Richard is? Really?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve never seen this movie?” I shook my head. “Oh, wow,” she said. “It’s the best movie in the world. You have to watch it.”

So we spent the evening watching Summer Holiday, with Cliff Richard crooning his way through Europe in a double decker bus. It was adorable. It was idealistic.

Sometimes English people will surprise you with a light-hearted musical.

A promotional poster for Summer Holiday

But Nooshin could sense my ambivalence. She could tell that although I admired her, I didn’t really love her.

She said the worst thing you can say to someone you haven’t seen for a while. She said, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

And she was right. I wasn’t much better than that first horrible roommate I had at NC State that I had judged to be so self-serving. I wanted it both ways. I wanted to have a girlfriend, and I wanted to do my own thing with no regard to others.

Bottom line — I wasn’t ready to give Nooshin what she wanted in a relationship. I wanted to go on exploring the world, meeting other people, and dating other girls.

So we parted ways, but not before I spent the summer staying in a flat that her father owned in Ripon, North Yorkshire. He let me stay there rent free even though I was breaking up with his daughter. It was awkward.

And I worked at the job that she had arranged for me at Lightwater Valley Amusement Park.

I saw her once or twice before I returned home, but we were no longer a couple. She stayed in England, and I returned to the US, “across the pond.”

And that was it. There was no internet or Facebook — no social media — to keep us in touch. It was international phone calls, letters, or nothing.

In the end, I did nothing to keep in touch. It was the end of our friendship and our fleeting romance. It would have been a bad ending for a musical.

Waiting In Limbo

After my return to the U.S., I was out of school for a year, waiting in limbo, before I was finally accepted to attend Duke Medical School in the fall of 1987.

During that year, I went to work full-time at Harris Teeter, a grocery store at Glenwood Village (about 3 blocks from my home). Srini was working there as a cashier and assistant manager. He helped me get a job in the Deli department.

After eight months, I applied for a job as a lifeguard with Raleigh Parks and Recreation. Instead, I was offered the position of manager at Biltmore Pool, where I spent the summer before medical school began.

It was three more years before I met my wife-to-be, Dianne Shihadi, at UNC School of Public Health. I met her when I took a year off from the grind of medical rotations — taking a little sabbatical from Duke, going off to Chapel Hill instead.

Schooling and Life

From the time I entered college in 1982, to the time I entered medical school in 1987, my life was a convoluted mess. I kept changing jobs. I kept changing universities. I kept moving around.

I couldn’t decide what I wanted, where I wanted to be, or who I wanted to be with.

I was impetuous. I was selfish. I was pretty immature.

I like to imagine that it was a time of learning and self-improvement, in and out of the classroom.

My time in college, preparing to live and work in society, wasn’t always a pleasant or straightforward affair.

Sometimes it was pleasant and fun. Sometimes it was unpleasant and confusing.

Sometimes life is smooth and goes according to plan.

Sometimes life is messy.

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Appendix I - Progression of Career Plans, College & Residency, Lodging, and Part Time Jobs from 1982 to 1995.

Majors: Engineering, Pre-Med (Zoology), Medicine, Public Health, Internal Medicine Internship, Family Practice Residency

Schools: Vanderbilt, NC State University (NCSU), Flinders University, NCSU, Involuntary Gap Year, Duke Medical School, UNC School of Public Health, Duke/UNC (completion of master’s paper), Montefiore Internship, USC–RMH Residency.

Living Quarters: Kissam Hall, Turlington Hall, Home, Alexander Hall, Uni Hall, Alexander Hall, Ripon flat, Home, Room in Srini’s House, Room in house on Dogwood Lane, room in house near Morreene Road, Room in house on McCauley Street, Room in Durham house and shared room at Ramsgate Apartments, Woodcroft duplex, One floor of Shadyside house, Columbia house.

Jobs: News & Observer (N&O), Burger King, Vanderbilt Security, Arby’s, Pullen Pool, Optimist Pool, N&O, Lightwater Valley Amusement Park, Harris Teeter Deli, Biltmore Pool Manager, Vine Vet kennel worker, N&O redelivery, Medical Intern, Medical Resident.

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Appendix II - Residence, College Courses, & Side Jobs in Chronological order - 1982-1995. (Jobs in italics)

Summer 1982
Work at Burger King

Fall 1982 - Kissam Hall at Vanderbilt
General Chemistry
Calculus AB
Engineering Principles (convinced me to leave Engineering)
Basic Graphics/Advanced Graphics
Logic (advanced my ability to construct a legitimate argument)
Work as Security Guard

Spring 1983 - Turlington at NCSU
English Composition & Rhetoric (required for every student at NCSU)
Intro to Psychology (required all students to volunteer for Psychology experiments)
Principles of Chemistry
Calculus BC
Physics (for Engineers. I withdrew before my GPA took a hit)
PE - Lifetime Fitness (required of every student. I tried too hard on the fitness test at the start, and failed to improve at the end)

Summer 1983 - Home
Work at Arby’s

Fall 1983 - Home, commuting to NCSU
English - Composition & Reading
Social Psychology (Human Behavior)
Organic Chemistry I
Invertebrate Zoology (feared by many for its difficulty, but I ended up with the best grade in the class)
Advanced Lifesaving (very practical, but physically exhausting)
PE - Archery, Soccer (best requirements to graduate from NCSU are the PE electives)
Working for N&O

Spring 1984 - Alexander Hall at NCSU
English - Creative Writing (a humbling experience in a class full of literati)
English - Studies in Fiction
Organic Chemistry II
Vertebrate Zoology
General Physics (for non-engineers. Best physics class ever.)
PE - Volleyball, Badminton (more great PE electives)
Working for N&O

Summer 1984 - Home
Work for Raleigh Parks & Recreation at Pullen Park.

Fall 1984 - Alexander Hall at NCSU
(This semester was filled with classes for my pre-med major.)
Biochemistry
Genetics (really fun class with a lab centered around fruit flies)
Microbiology
Histology
Vertebrate Physiology
Work for RP&R at Optimist Pool

1985 - University Hall at Flinders University in Adelaide
History of American Politics
Australian Multiculturalism
Other humanities elective that I’ve since forgotten
Virology
Immunology
Not working, for once!

Spring 1986 - Alexander Hall at NCSU
Ecology (so much fun that I wish I had known earlier)
Medical Microbiology,
Comparative Anatomy
Embryology
PE - 2 more electives
Working for Mr. Pate - N&O

Summer 1986 - Ripon, North Yorkshire
Work Exchange at Lightwater Valley Amusement Park

Fall 1986 - Home/ Srini’s house in Raleigh
Working full time at Harris Teeter in Deli department

Summer 1987 - Dogwood Lane in Raleigh
Working as Pool Manager at Biltmore Pool

Fall 1987-Spring 1988 - Near Morreene Road in Durham
Basic Sciences Year:
Anatomy
Pathology
Biochemistry
Pharmacology
Physiology
Microbiology
Diagnostic clinical exam, Histology

Summer 1988-Spring 1989 - Somewhere in west Durham
Duke Clinical Rotations:
Internal Medicine
Surgery
Pediatrics
Ob-Gyn
Psychology (and Child Psychology)

Fall 1989-Spring 1990 - McCauley Street in Chapel Hill
UNC Public Health Classes
Work for Vine Vet as Kennel Assistant/ N&O redelivery

Summer 1990 - Tempe, Arizona
Internship with ASU Department of Psychology
First master’s paper - “Primary Prevention of Psychopathology in Children with the Loss of a Parent” - Rejected.

Fall 1990 - Durham/Ramsgate in Carrboro
Duke Basic Sciences:
Epidemiology
History of Medicine
Another that I can’t recall

Spring 1991 - Fall 1991 - Ramsgate → Woodcroft in Durham
Duke Advanced Clinical Rotations:
Family Practice Clinic
Occupational Medicine
Geriatrics
Dermatology
Emergency Medicine
Other Internal Medicine and Pediatrics

Spring 1992 - Woodcroft in Durham
Second Master’s Paper - “Secondary Analysis in the Emergency Department Data” - Accepted

1992-1993 - Shadyside, Pgh, PA
Transitional Year Program

1993-1995 - Columbia, SC
USC-RMH Family Practice Residency.

That Magic Moment

There are wonderful moments in life when God seems to smile upon you, sharing all of the joy to be found between heaven and earth — magical moments.

When your fiancée, dressed in white lace and wearing a veil, walks radiantly through a congregation of friends and family, in a church richly adorned by murals and translucent colored glass, as the Bridal Chorus plays.

Dianne, with her father - June 23, 1991

And when you hold your newborn twins, swaddled in blankets, wrapped up with love. You touch their palms, and their little fingers wrap around yours, and the tiny lips on their golden faces pucker.

Those moments are the best of all. They are indisputably the best moments of my life.

Mom and Dad with newborn twins - November 1994

Other Landmark Moments

And there have been other wonderful moments as well:

Standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, slowly turning to see the entire panorama… during a cross-country trip… while returning home.

Looking across Derwent Water towards Keswick from the ridge of a mountain in the Lake District, with sheep paddocks and hedgerows decorating the landscape like a patchwork.

Leaving the Fort Pitt tunnel and crossing the bridge above the Monongahela River as the lights and skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh loom closer and closer.

Pittsburgh & the Monongahela (credit: Emmanuel Panagiotakis)

Hiking a trail in the Cradle of Forestry when the scarlet leaves of the oak trees are at the peak of autumn color.

Backing over the edge of a cliff in the Devil’s Playground of Arches National Park, suspended by a rope and a harness, as the rest of your family watch and wait for their turn.

Standing on the tidal basin of the Potomac, at the foot of the Jefferson Monument as the cherry blossom petals fall.

Potomac Tidal Basin in Spring (credit: Dwight Nadig)

Looking down on the Lauterbrunnen Valley from the edge of the glacial valley near Mürren.

Looking out on the flotilla of balloons rising above the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia in Goreme, Turkey.

Looking up at the frescoes of Marc Chagall on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier in Paris.

The Opera House—Palais Garnier

I’ve been blessed with wonderful moments and wonderful opportunities: Being selected for the School of Science and Math. Being selected for Duke Medical School. Being selected for an international student exchange in Adelaide, South Australia.

Of all these transcendent moments in time (and others), there is one that surpasses almost all the rest—all but my wedding and the birth of my children.

Can you guess what it is—what could be so magical?

It’s the moment on April 4th, 1983, when Lorenzo Charles grabbed the wayward shot from Derrick Whittenburg, just short of the rim, and dunked it in. With seconds on the clock, he sealed a 54–52 victory for NC State, winning the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship.

Yep… I rank it third on the list of all-time great moments in my life so far:

-Marrying the woman I love.

-Holding my baby twins.

-Celebrating the unlikely victory of my alma mater.

Solidly third.

The Cinderella Season

Considered by many to be one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history, there is a documentary called 30 for 30: Survive and Advance that is all about the ’82–’83 season. There was also a VHS tape released decades ago, called The Glass Slipper Still Fits, that tells the story. It’s still in a closet in our house somewhere. You can learn more about the details of the magical season at your leisure or watch the highlights. I’m just going to describe what I remember.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I grew up in Raleigh, and I followed the NC State Wolfpack, rooting for them for at least eight years before I attended college.

The Wolfpack had won the men’s national basketball championship before, in 1974, with David Thompson, Monte Towe, and Tommy Burleson, ending a decade of dominance in the tournament by UCLA. I was almost ten years old when they won the first time, and just about everyone in Raleigh was thrilled about the team. (Some UNC fans couldn’t get on board.)

The 1974 Wolfpack team—Norm Sloan in plaid.

But the days of wine and roses were over by the time I went to college. The previous coach, Norm Sloan, left town for greener pastures in 1980 (the same year I left town for NCSSM), but before he left, he recruited some promising players from DeMatha High School in D.C.—Sidney Lowe and Dereck Whittenburg.

In 1982, guards Whittenburg and Lowe were seniors, and there were some other pretty good players — forward Thurl Bailey, center Cozelle McQueen, and guard Ernie Myers, who played sticky defense.

Guard Terry Gannon, the sixth man, was a good three-point shooter, taking shots from behind the arc. It was the first year that the three-point shot was introduced (as an experimental rule) in the ACC. There was hope that the new season would go well for the Pack.

And there was a promising rookie, named Lorenzo Charles, who was muscular and talented. He was a wildcard.

There was also a young but unproven coach from Iona named Jimmy Valvano, who was a brash Italian from Queens with some new ideas, and a unique affinity for the media. Folks didn’t really expect him to amount to much.

Valvano, at a press conference on his first day

This was the situation when I transferred in the fall of 1982, from Vanderbilt University to NC State. I moved into Turlington Dorm on central campus in January of 1983, and began to take my classes in PE, English, Psychology, Calculus, and Physics.

No one expected too much of the basketball program, but we still liked to go from time to time and join in the excitement at Reynolds Coliseum. It was only a block away — on the other side of the Talley Student Union.

We dressed up in the school colors. We created wolf shapes with our hands. We would cheer “Red!” from one side of the stadium and “White!” from the other side, until it turned into “Fred” and “Fwhite”.

And when the marching band played the intro to the fight song, we sang:

We’re the Red and White from State,

And we know we are the best.

A hand behind our back,

We can take on all the rest.

Come over the hill, Caroline.

[Or, more often, “Go to hell, Carolina!”]

Devils and Deacs stand in line.

The Red and White from N.C. State.

Go State!

Members of the Wolfpack fanbase

With our raucous fan support, the ‘82-‘83 season got off to a pretty good start: N.C. State started off 7-2, before meeting the University of Virginia on January 12, 1983. That’s when disaster struck.

Derrick Whittenburg got hurt during the game, breaking a bone in his foot, putting him out of commission for the next 14 games in a row. Still… the team played well enough to go 9–5 during his absence. When ‘Whit’ came back, the team initially struggled, losing two more games, to Virginia and Maryland.

I was at the final regular season game of the season against Wake Forest. We won! And it was a slaughter. The Wolfpack played so well that they ended the game with a 41-point lead, winning 130 to 89. We believed we still had a chance to make the NCAA tournament.

The ACC Tournament

At the end of the season, the team had a record of 17 wins and 10 losses. No one had ever been sent to the NCAA tourney with double digit losses before. But we were fourth in the conference, and had a chance to advance if we won the ACC tournament. It was still possible.

But it was a real long shot because UNC was returning from their own NCAA national championship season (in 1982) with Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan.

And, even worse, Virginia had the national player of the year, Ralph Sampson, and was ranked fourth in the nation.

But first we had to play Wake Forest again. The second time around, only six days after the rout in the season finale, the Demon Deacons were well prepared. I don’t know the details, but the Wolfpack barely won the game, winning by a single point, in a nail-biter, after coming from behind.

Then they beat UNC in the ACC semifinals, in a game that went to overtime.

Then they played Virginia, the source of their earlier misfortune (and two regular season losses). And they won again, barely – by three points.

But they won, nonetheless. They were the ACC tournament champs, and they earned themselves an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney.

Somewhere around this time, the media dubbed them The Cardiac Pack. Watching them play from behind most of the game, only to win and advance, could give you a heart attack. Lots of red and white apparel, bumper stickers, and NC State merchandise were being sold at the student store and on the streets of Raleigh. Tuffy, the wolf, was everywhere.

“Tuffy” - the NC State mascot

Cinderella at the Ball - The NCAA Tournament.

Five days after the ACC tournament win, the team flew out west, to Oregon, for a game against Pepperdine. I watched this game from home on TV as it ran late into the night. State struggled mightily, barely tying the game to force an overtime. After another five minutes of game time, they were still tied, and a second overtime ensued. It was after midnight before the game was decided.

The Pack squeaked by with a win in double overtime.

In the next game, NC State was given little chance of winning. They faced the ‘running rebels’ of UNLV, a team with a reputation for blowout victories. Many pundits noted, rightly, that NC State depended quite a bit on outside shooting. The NCAA had not yet adopted the three-point shot that was a feature in the ACC. So outside shooting was of significantly less benefit in the NCAA tourney.

Even so, State managed to win the game against UNLV, 71–70.

At this point, I wanted to see the games with my fellow fanatics. So I planned to see the Sweet Sixteen game on a big screen that was set up on “The Brickyard”, just outside the ground floor of the D. H. Hill library, right on campus.

This just happened to be the one game in the tournament that was a decisive double-digit win. The crowd of jubilant students were treated to a game that finally looked like it wasn’t just a fluke.

The national media was starting to pay attention. But in the end, we had to face Virginia again, in the Western Conference finals, in a game in Ogden, Utah. We had to get past Ralph Sampson and the Cavaliers again, in a revenge game.

In the end, it didn’t matter. We beat University of Virginia 63 to 62, to win the West bracket.

And we beat the University of Georgia 67 to 60 in the Final Four.

We were facing the University of Houston in the national championship game.

The Finals - David and Goliath

Houston was nicknamed Phi Slamma Jamma, for their dominant full court game and their high-flying dunking abilities. They had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, two future NBA Hall of Famers. No one gave the Cardiac Pack a chance. It was pretty much over if you believed the national media. They were honestly wondering how to hype the game since it seemed so obvious that Houston was going to wipe the floor with NC State.

I watched this game at home, two miles from campus, with my brother. I was too worried about the outcome to watch it anywhere else.

In the first half, we came out aggressively, keeping Olajuwon away from the basket — protecting the rim. At the other end, Olajuwon was swatting away everything in his reach. Two or three baskets were awarded on goaltending calls alone. Still, Houston ran out to a sizable lead, and by the second half things looked pretty grim.

But somewhere in the second half, the game took a turn for the better. Houston stopped running the full-court break for reasons that the announcers couldn’t fathom. (It turns out that the elevation was causing exhaustion for some of the players on their team.) NC State crept back into contention through a combination of long-distance shooting and intentional fouls.

As Houston missed free throws and State hit their shots, the game became deadlocked at 52-all. NC State took possession and held it for a last second shot. They passed the ball around the perimeter.

Benny Anders nearly stole the ball from Whittenburg.

But Whit maintained possession.

He turned toward the basket, gathering the ball for a shot.

He was too far away.

Still, he had to let it fly.

Going in the right direction.

A pretty good arc.

But coming up short.

And that’s when it happened.

Lorenzo Charles’ Alley-oop Dunk at the buzzer

The best moment of my life (up to that point).

Still the third best moment of my life ever, over forty years later.

Epilogue

Mike and I drove up to Hillsborough Street after the buzzer, joined in the mob of jubilant fans, watching bonfires burn in the middle of the asphalt.

I went to the pep rally, set up on “The Brickyard” when the team returned from Albuquerque.

I saw Thurl Bailey once, on Western Boulevard when we pulled up to a stop light at the same time. He was in a convertible with some friends. I was all by myself. I was so stunned, I probably had a comical expression on my face. They gave an appreciative smile and a laugh, and they drove away.

The team struggled after the three seniors, Whittenburg, Lowe, and Bailey, graduated. The magic was gone.

I went to games to watch Spud Webb and Lorenzo Charles try to recapture the magic.

I watched as the fiasco of the recruitment and the antics of Chris Washburn played out while I was still an undergrad.

I watched from the wings as Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe tried to rekindle the magic while I was a student at Duke and at UNC. They made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 1989.

The following year the program served probation and sanctions for NCAA violations involving the sale of complimentary tickets and sneakers. I heard that some media hound (other words come to mind that I just can’t use) wrote a book that led to Jimmy Valvano’s departure in 1990: (Personal Fouls: The Broken Promises and Shattered Dreams of Big Money Basketball at Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State)

Jim Valvano left and became a media sensation on ESPN, with Dick Vitale, but he tragically died in 1993, at age 47, from prostate cancer.

Before he died, he gave one of the most inspirational speeches I have ever heard (maybe I’m biased), concluding with the phrase, “Don’t give up, Don’t ever give up.” After his death, it became the tagline for his foundation, the Jimmy V Foundation, ultimately raising hundreds of millions for cancer research.

Jimmy Valvano’s inspirational words

Since then I have followed NC State in spirit only, waiting for the magic to return.

Acknowledgements

I wouldn’t be writing these stories without the love and support of my beautiful wife, who I met about six years after the Cinderella season — ironically, at UNC–Chapel Hill.

Dianne Shihadi Gallup, in her bridal gown.

…and my two beautiful daughters, Jasmine and Samantha, who encouraged me to recall, and write about, the years of wine and roses. They were born about eleven years later – too late to understand the ecstasy of a national men’s basketball college championship victory.

Steve Gallup with Samantha and Jasmine.

Finding the Right Path

{Prompt: What were your least favorite school subjects?}

Have you ever gone for a walk in the woods, and taken the wrong path? You think you’ve taken the right turn, but about a half mile later, you realize the waypoints and the landmarks are off, and you’re headed the wrong way.

What do you do then?

Do you keep on heading up the path in a state of denial?

Do you cut through the woods looking for a shortcut to the final destination?

Do you head back to the place where you took your wrong turn and start again?

This is a story about going up the wrong path, recognizing the warning signs, and eventually finding the right path.

Setting Off

In 1982, I was completing my high school diploma at the NC School of Science and Mathematics.

I thought I was pretty smart.

I thought I could go to college just about anywhere.

I thought I should become an engineer.

I perceived engineering to be a career of problem solving and inventiveness. I thought that, one day I might find myself assigned to create a better widget; and through a process of design and revision, I would ultimately arrive at a masterful solution, designing the best widget known to mankind.

I thought the career of an engineer might be the career of a creator — creating ever more elegant inventions, reaping more and more satisfaction and happiness for both myself and mankind.

I was ready to accept the role of the ‘chosen one’.

I had pretty grandiose dreams when I was eighteen.

So I applied to attend Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, in the School of Engineering. I got accepted by “Vandy” and headed west on Interstate 40.

About 12 hours and 540 miles later, I arrived at Kissam Hall, in a picturesque quad of six dormitory buildings on the northeast corner of campus, a campus shaded by venerable white oaks, sugar maples, and southern magnolias.

Every evening at 6 pm, the carillon in the tower of Kirkland Hall would play Try to Remember (a song from The Fantasticks).

It seemed as if the whole world would pause just a moment in nostalgia and reverence to listen to the chiming bells as they rang across the void at supper time. At least for a minute or two, my academic concerns would dissipate as I listened to the tune floating over the quad and into my window.

Kirkland Hall on Vanderbilt University campus

Life at Vanderbilt

I came to know the campus well, in a very short time because I joined the campus security force as a student with a work-study job. Most of the time, I was called upon to escort a student from one part of campus to another, dressed in a light blue police shirt and tie, in uniform, with a walkie talkie in hand. At other times, I was tasked with checking the external doors to Vanderbilt University Hospital, circumnavigating the sprawling complex of buildings to be sure that all the doors were closed tight and locked.

I also dabbled in some extracurricular activities. With a friend, we went to try out for the junior varsity soccer team. But we quickly withdrew when we saw that the level of talent was far beyond our abilities. The tryouts also seemed like a perverse opportunity to torture the walk-on candidates, orchestrated by the sadistic coaching assistants, who were in charge of the process.

In an effort to stay within my capabilities, I went for a few rides with the cycling club — learning to ride in an organized paceline for the very first time. The backroads of Tennessee were pleasant, and I still had a little bit of fitness from my bicycle ride across the state of North Carolina, six months before—from Murphy to Manteo.

But the cycling club cyclists were in very fine shape. I found myself yo-yoing off the back or, sometimes, getting dropped. Also, a typical ride took too much time away from my other commitments, so my days of riding through the countryside were numbered.

Ultimately, I joined a club for aspiring graphic designers, and, with a friend, we brainstormed different logos, rendering a prodigious number of designs. Unfortunately, our “genius” was mostly unrecognized by the other members of this “guild”. Or perhaps we were ahead of our time – doomed to be unappreciated during our short tenure.

That graphics club and the class that I took in technical drafting were my fondest memories of my academic experience at Vanderbilt University. I found that drawing and design were relatively easy for me. The logo designs for the club were a pleasant diversion, and the schematic drawings for the drafting class were pleasant assignments.

But not all was well in the university. Though the wooded commons, crisscrossed by pathways under the shade trees, had charm… and the school had a rich tradition of sports and club activities… there was a heavy presence of Greek Life on campus, and a not-so-subtle hierarchy of class that rubbed me the wrong way.

There were many freshmen on Kissam quad that took fraternity membership seriously, and were eager to “rush” for a spot in the house that they preferred. They seemed to perceive my disinterest in Greek life as an anomaly — even a character flaw. But be that as it may, I never applied to join a frat. I might have been young and foolish, but that was a decision that I never regretted.

Major Questions

However, I was starting to regret my chosen degree. It started with a course called Engineering Principles, an introduction to Engineering — a class taught by a team of engineering faculty, designed to introduce the fundamentals of the profession — providing a foundation for the courses to follow.

One of the assignments was to identify an engineering problem in need of a solution, and to draft a proposal.

I admit, I was not a tinkerer in childhood. I had not been deconstructing appliances or building robots. Even though I went to a school of Science and Math, I was not filled with engineering thoughts or aspirations.

But, still, I thought I had a pretty good proposal, suggesting some sort of a “silencer” for the shutter of an SLR camera. (At the time, widespread sales of silent digital cameras were still 20 years in the future.) Every camera I had ever used made an audible click-clack sound as the internal mirror flipped up and the mechanical shutter opened and closed. It happened when the button was depressed to take a picture.

Schematic diagram of an SLR camera

My instructor was very succinct when he rejected my proposal. He believed that technology already existed to dampen the sound of a camera shutter. No revision of the proposal or further investigation was necessary.

Even worse… shortly after the outright rejection of my proposal… the students in the class, including me, were given only minutes to recover and to decide on which (approved) project team to join for the remainder of the course. It was akin to choosing kickball teams on a school playground. I felt unprepared and unwilling to choose among the five or six acceptable project proposals.

Before I knew it, teams had formed for all of the projects but one. I was left to haplessly join a team of aspiring engineers in the one remaining project — a project to design a suitable electronic scanning system using the barcodes on library books.

I was deflated by my own project’s rejection, and humiliated by my inglorious draft into the least desirable alternative. My heart was not in the project, and I did very little to contribute to its completion. Fortunately, the head of the project was perfectly satisfied to do it himself. Ultimately, my grade in the class reflected my difficulty in adjusting to the class requirements. I got a C.

I don’t know why this class was so demoralizing for my ambitions. But it was.

Perhaps it was poorly taught — the instructors having little invested in the success or failure of the students. Or perhaps I was in over my head. Although I had always done well in math and technology, these engineering students were hyper-focused on the career of engineering.

Before I changed my major completely (which happened at NC State), I took a Physics for Engineers course that was insanely difficult. It required a superior grasp of calculus to solve the physics problems.

When I realized I was floundering, I dropped the course — just in the nick of time, only hours before the end of the drop/add period. I later took a Physics (for everyone) introductory course, where Calculus was not required, and I enjoyed every minute of it, even the section on “Optics.” From that point on, I knew I had made the right decision — to leave the major of Engineering behind.

Changing Course

My experience at Vanderbilt was a mixture of the good and the bad. I enjoyed the evening ringing of the bells. I enjoyed drawing technical and graphic designs. I even enjoyed my job in campus security.

But I did not enjoy the class distinctions of the rich and entitled. I did not enjoy my failures in the introductory engineering class. And I did not enjoy leaving my close friends from high school and moving a day’s drive away by car.

Ultimately, the decision to transfer back to Raleigh — to NC State University — was made perfectly clear. When I saw the balance of my tuition fees (for Vanderbilt), near the end of the first semester, I knew that we didn’t have the means to pay, even with scholarships. I made my plans to leave Vanderbilt for good — leaving after only one semester.

I had to tell one of my very good friends — one that had gone through the farce of soccer tryouts with me, and who had enthusiastically brainstormed logo designs with me — that I was heading back home. I felt a little bit smaller to be leaving him in that rat-infested “Harvard of the South” without a comrade, but I felt that I was leaving for the best of reasons—the preservation of my family.

The results of that decision were proof of its sensibility. When I came to NC State University, I changed my major to Zoology (Pre-Med), and I began taking courses in Chemistry and Biology — courses in which I excelled. I never felt like I was somehow less in quality or character than the students I met. My tuition was affordable, and it wasn’t long before my scholarships paid for all of the costs of my college education.

Best of all, as I transferred to NC State University, the basketball team was in the midst of a resurgence. The “Cardiac Pack” went on a stunning run from the end of the regular season to the finals of the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship.

And they won it all! I was there to enjoy the chaos and pandemonium of Hillsborough Street, and the basketball team’s welcome home reception on the brickyard in April of 1983.

Jim Valvano and Derrick Whittenburg after winning it all.

I went on to enjoy courses in Vertebrate and Invertebrate Zoology, Comparative Anatomy and Biochemistry, Genetics, with a lab full of fruit flies, and Ecology, with field trips to natural areas far and wide.

I went on a Study Abroad program, where I took virology at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, immunology, and some difficult liberal arts electives that required research papers and oral testing. But I only had to pass these courses, so they did not affect my GPA. (I received a pass/fail grade since they were from an overseas university.)

I went on to Medical School (after a brief hiatus), taking ever more difficult courses (Pharmacology, Physiology, Pathology, et al.) with smarter and smarter classmates. And I took rotations in medical subspecialties.

But I felt that I was in a field that was leading me into a wide open frontier. There were many paths that I could follow, and there was much in the medical world yet to be discovered.

It was a field requiring both knowledge and art, learned in great part through apprenticeship — rotations in medical school and in residency.

And then I went on to a career in Family Medicine.

It was a path that undoubtedly started with my unceremonious failure in that first engineering class at Vanderbilt University.

Pathfinding Basics

As you can see, I took a wrong turn when I left the School of Science and Math.

I went to a school in another state that was beyond my fiscal ability to pay.

I majored in a field where I had a limited interest compared to the other students who were fully committed.

And I wandered far from home, finding myself in a dorm amongst pseudo-intellectuals, who were more interested in fraternity life than the acquisition of knowledge or skill.

I congratulate myself for making at least one good decision. I decided to head back to the starting point and begin again.

I headed back to my hometown and the Triangle, to a school that I could afford.

I changed my major to Zoology (NC State’s version of the Pre-Med degree), and I took on a curriculum that was more to my satisfaction.

I started by commuting from home, but I ultimately landed at Alexander Dorm, the housing option for international students. Most of them were happy to talk with and interact with a native North Carolinian. There was no pretentiousness.

Sometimes you find yourself on the wrong path. Perhaps you are too ambitious. Perhaps you find yourself running out of resources. Perhaps you are looking for adventure, but find that the trail is too dangerous. Maybe you are heading for the wrong destination. Maybe you are lost.

Sometimes you have to reconsider, recalibrate, and return to your starting point.

And try again.

Appendix -My favorite classes (and a few of my least favorite):

I love school immensely. I would happily be a school teacher, if it paid even half of its true worth. There are very few classes that I didn’t enjoy.

In elementary school I especially enjoyed doing multiplication and learning to write cursive. I generally did not enjoy Social Studies, which, to me, seemed to have relatively little practical importance.

In Junior High, I enjoyed Biology and Geometry and Algebra. I also enjoyed the vocational electives including Woodworking, and even Home Economics. I did not particularly like learning History; which is ironic considering my love of history, and historical fiction today.

In high school I enjoyed Botany, AP English, Typing, Western Civilization, Comparative Religions, and Astrophysics. I took, but did not really enjoy, Latin and Spanish, and I found the conjugations, the grammar, and the vocabulary of the foreign languages to be tedious and difficult to master.

Speaking a foreign language in front of a class of your peers was a hard pill to swallow. I never got to the third year, when spoken language was nourished and encouraged. I always felt like the languages were being taught backwards. They should be spoken first and foremost—only written, read, parsed, and conjugated after achieving some verbal fluency.

My opinions of my classes in college are described in gruesome detail in the story above. I think maybe, now that I’m retired, it’s time to go back and find a new path, one that has been unexplored. Time to blaze a new trail.