Well, it’s official and it feels weird. So weird, that I dug up my old fraternity jacket to see if it fits. Not even close, by the way. I’m sure you are asking why I would do such a thing. Because after almost a half century, I’m headed back to college — and I do not mean via the computer, aka, “distance learning.” I am actually going back to the campus of the University of Alabama from whence I graduated. Technically, I’m not enrolling as a student. I’m going to audit a class. That’s a fancy way of saying you get to pay the full price of tuition to sit in the back and listen to someone lecture. I’ll do the work, but I won’t get a grade, which is OK by me. Might’ve been nice to have done it that way the first time I was down there.
The reason I am going is the instructor. It’s not just anyone. The person who’s teaching the course, Advanced Magazine Writing, is none other than Rick Bragg, my writing hero. I consider him the greatest living Southern writer. The man has won a Pulitzer Prize, for goodness sake. And he’s had more than one book on the New York Times bestseller list. To put it another way — if a guitarist could take a class taught by Eric Clapton, would he do it? Perhaps now you understand. That’s the way I feel about Rick. One of the highest compliments I have ever received about my writing is when I sent him a few samples of my work and he responded by saying, “I enjoy the way you write about our people.” It was about a week before my feet touched the ground. That was kinda like Paula Deen saying she liked your squash casserole.
I’ll be driving to Tuscaloosa once a week for the afternoon class that meets for two and a half hours. That means lunch in T-Town – Woo Hoo! I plan to visit some of my old food haunts that are still alive and kicking — Dreamland, Archibald’s, The Waysider, City Café, Nick’s in the Sticks and of course, Taco Casa. Nothing like student comfort food from a half century ago — my cholesterol be damned.
As you might expect, registering for a class for the first time in 50 years convinced me that technology has passed me by. In order to take this graduate class, I actually had to apply to get into graduate school like any other student. That meant filling out long forms online, getting my grade transcripts, coming up with three letters of recommendation and a writing a statement of purpose. Not to mention receiving a new student number, and setting up a student email that had to be double encrypted for security. This kind of thing is no fun for someone who ain’t a technology guy. And believe me, I ain’t. I would still be using carbon paper if I could. By the time I finished registering, the Alabama IT person and I were on a first-name basis. And I still made mistakes. For example, my application was initially rejected because I clicked on a wrong box and apparently applied for geology grad school. Got that fixed quickly — I want to write better stories, not study rocks.
There were more speed bumps. When I called about paying my tuition, I was informed that I was not a resident of Alabama. That’s understandable I suppose. After all, I’ve only lived here for 50 years. In order to make the correction, I had to email a request to the registrar, who did an inquiry. After several days, I was informed that I did live here after all. That’s good to know.
And when I tell most of my friends about my new college adventure, their first response is, “Hey, are you gonna get any football tickets?” This is Alabama after all. The answer is no — they aren’t available to me. Sadly, there will be no fraternity beer busts or pledge swaps, either. Even if that was possible, my wife would nix that. And that’s a good thing because at my age I’d probably be more interested in the housemothers.
Of course, there’s the age thing. My wife told me when she went back to school get a master’s degree at the ripe old age of 38, she felt old. And I’m a whole lot riper than that. I think the odds are I will be the oldest student physically attending a class on campus next semester. I just checked and discovered that I’m gonna be older than my teacher! It will truly be Paw Paw goes to college.
Hopefully, none of my “classmates” will ask me any smart alec questions like when I saw my first horseless carriage, or how it felt when the Union troops burned the school down during the Civil War. If they do, I may hit them with my cane.
And if they want to know my age, I’ll just say, “I’m not as old as Nick Saban.” Maybe that will shut them up.
Young whipper snappers.
Joe Hobby is a barbecue-loving comedian from Alabama who wrote for Jay Leno for many years. Find more of Joe’s stories on his blog: www.mylifeasahobby.blogspot.com. Follow him on Facebook at Joe Hobby Comedian-Writer.
