Rev. Jan Michael Joncas, of "On Eagle's Wings" fame, once said something in passing on an old email list, the gist of which is as follows and is so true: the passage of time in our lives is marked and measured by fiscal calendars, church calendars, sports calendars and the calendar hung by a thumbtack in my kitchen which claims that the year starts in January and ends in December; but in reality, most of us organize our lives around the academic calendar.
All four of my children are young adults or teens. Two have graduated from college and are now in the working world, in one case pursuing her chosen career (elementary school teacher), in the other working while trying to figure out the next career move (probably some sort of graduate school). Both are still living with us.
Another kid is in college - we dropped him off this past weekend, which involved my driving a U-Haul truck across the Upper Midwest prairies for most of a Sunday. He's a sophomore; last year he lived in a dorm but this year got an apartment with one of his pals from the club sports team he fools around on. So the U-Haul was crammed full of furniture, most of which has been handed down to him by his elder siblings who already had filled college apartments with couches, beds, dressers and the like and then brought all that crap home when they moved back in with us after college.
Our youngest is in high school, which starts tomorrow, but the marching band, which is serious business around here, has already been in full swing for a couple of weeks now.
So during the summer, we had the full contingent living in our rather small ranch house, with one working more or less full time, two not working, and one working a summer job (life guard and swim teacher at the local park district) that involved a lot of short shifts on random days. Now that school is in swing again, we're down one completely (off to college), another is gone most of the day (teaching), another is working her job while figuring out her next move, and the youngest, between high school and band, will be gone most of the time each day. As I write this, I nearly have the house to myself, which is a big change.
There was a time when we basically followed the cycle envisioned by all of those Target and Walmart ads on television: during July my wife would buy clothes, shoes, pencils, rulers and backpacks, and then starting sometime in late August we'd pop the kids on the bus or drop them off at the school doorway, like clockwork, until sometime in early June.
For the last few years, the way we've marked the academic seasons is: Start of year, kid moves into dorm or apartment; End of year: kid moves back home. That is expected to continue for several more years.
If all goes according to plan, in five years or so, they'll all have college degrees and - I hope - our little ranch house will be a good deal emptier. Which will be sad and and probably dull, but it also sounds nice.
As a student, parent, and professor, I lived by the academic calendar. I retired the day after Mom died, a couple weeks earlier than planned. As the estate stuff winds down, I am faced for the first time with an August/September that is not filled with meetings, buying supplies, or replacing work clothes.
ReplyDeleteWe are planning an after-Labor-Day vacation for the first time in our married life of 35 years. We are looking forward to it, but I feel like I am playing hooky!
Jean, enjoy your vacation. Fall is a good time for a trip. I still feel like I'm playing hooky. But I'm not missing work at all. Have only had a few phone calls from my successor asking questions.
DeleteI have gotten a few emails from the dean asking me to come back in winter, but I keep telling him that ship has sailed.
DeleteI only read, write, and learn what I want to now.
Jean, one note of warning on after-Labor Day vacations: On the Columbus Day holiday, busload of busload of seniors arrive at popular family vacation spots, timing their trip to avoid children. We discovered this one year when we couldn't get down the streets of Mystic, Ct., for all the walkers and motorized wheel chairs.
DeleteI would have been one of the old bags with a walker, but thanks!
DeleteOne of our sons lived in the dorm the whole time. The other decided that he and an old high school buddy would save lots of money by living in an apartment their junior, senior, and second senior year (spoiler alert: they didn't save money). For one thing, landlords usually don't want to lease for just nine months. And they won't save your place for you if you bail out and go home for the summer. Which means you need a summer job in the college town where everybody else is looking for a summer job. Also landlords don't want two names on the lease. They want one name, that they can collect money from. If the roommate doesn't pay his share, that's between the two of them. This mom much preferred dorms to kids renting apartments. Usually the dorms don't have cockroaches, or druggie neighbors, or a faulty heating system that has gas fumes and costs more in uti!ity bills than Mom and Dad's whole house. And cafeteria meal plans are more balanced than Totino's pizza and ramen noodles. If it sounds like i'm glad those days are in the rear view mirror, that would be true.
ReplyDeleteThis dad much preferred dorms. This dad's kids much preferred renting. When I was a lad, you had to be a freshman to be in a dorm. Before graduation, my roommate gave our quarters a clean sweep-down fore and aft. The rediscovered pizza went into the garbage, the clothes on top of it went to the cleaners, the mold in the giant beer mug was scraped and washed out, and the mug fairly glowed. My mom took one look at the place, and said, "You have been living in this dump???"
DeleteI lived in dorms for three years. I liked it. And it was less expensive than renting. And we did eat better in the cafeteria. And it was a lot less work to eat: you just showed up, got your food, ate, and went on with your life. No shopping, no preparation, no dishes.
DeleteOne of my kids stayed in the dorm through sophomore year. The other two fled after freshman year. So far, it's been a mistake - hope it doesn't work out that way for my son.
When my dad was at Notre Dame, in the mid-1950's, part of the "package" when you lived in a dorm was maid service. Can you imagine? That's the life I need.
I was a commuter student. Dorm life etc. seemed like paying to live in a zoo. Once I started earning my own money, then I really was independent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college, the residential dorm meal plan consisted of pre-paying for a certain number of meals per week (for some reason, it was three squares per day, but only two on Sunday). Meals were served at designated times, so you had to roll out of bed by a certain time to get breakfast, and you had to line up between certain hours to get lunch and dinner. And your choice was 2-3 entrees - I think more often two than three. Although there were dispensers of Captain Crunch here and there, and a salad bar, so even if the meatloaf was inedible (and it was), one would never go hungry. Our attitude was that once noted by columnist Steve Chapman: our two contradictory complaints were that the food was terrible and there wasn't enough of it. In spite of which drawbacks, I still managed to put on 20 pounds, at least, during the three years I lived in the dorm. Although beer may have played a role in that. They didn't serve beer in the cafeteria, and it wasn't allowed in the dorms, so how I managed to quaff any is still sort of a puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOne of my kids attended the very same college (Loyola) within the last few years, but how things have changed. Instead of one cafeteria for the entire campus, there are about 10. And each of them is a food court. You want a sandwich? Build your own. Pizza? Over there. Burritos? Ole. Sweet rolls, cookies, brownies? No problem. The meatloaf smelled edible, and you can still get a couple of industrial-size scoops out of the large pans of mac and cheese with the cheese burnt on top. And the only limit is your budget and your good sense. Instead of limiting the number of meals, you buy a certain number of points. If your card runs out of points, call mom and dad and have them reload.
The dorm rooms are a lot nicer than they were in my student days. We had two to a room, 2 single beds, bare tile floors, and the communal bathroom was down the hall. Now they are "suites", with four single rooms, a shared bathroom and a multipurpose room with a micro fridge. I couldn't believe they would rather live in a cruddy sketchy apartment. There wasn't even a curfew with a dragon lady dorm mother in the dorm anymore.
DeleteKatherine, if I didn't live in an all-men's dorm, I'd swear we lived in the same building. I hope yours didn't have unimaginable luxuries like window air conditioner units.
DeleteWe didn't have dragon ladies, we had befuddled Jesuit priests. I lived next door to one for three years. Very nice guy with not a clue how to connect with the young men living in his wings.
My freshman year I went to a small Catholic college that doesn't exist anymore; Marynount in Salina, Kansas. So our dorm mom was a young nun. She was pretty nice. But she couldn't have been much more than five years older than the students.
DeleteThat should be Marymount, not Marynount. The Dragon lady was at the state college I transferred to later. The curfew was stricter there than at Marymount.
DeleteKatherine, what order of nuns ran your college? Was it the RSHMs?
DeleteThey were the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, KS.
DeleteKatherine, I went to the Marymount that is now Loyola Marymount (LMU) of Los Angeles. The nuns were Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. At one time they had 4 yr colleges in Tarrytown NY, and Manhattan, as well as the Marymount in LA. They also had two-year colleges in Florida and in Arlington VA. The Manhattan school is now called Marymount, but it is secular. Tarrytown is now part of Fordham. Florida closed completely, but they founded a new junior college in California, in Palos Verdes. I believe it is now a 4 year college. LMU is in LA itself, Palos Verdes is about 25 mins south of there. The Virginia junior college became 4 yr and then became a university, granting MAs etc, mostly via night and weekend school, although the undergrads may still live on campus. It is still RSHM (technically speaking). Some consider Marymount University VA to be a bit of a degree mill in the DC area, but it is very popular.
DeleteWe had luxury dorms on the original Marymount PV campus, before the merger with Loyola. They were suites with two doubles, a dressing room lined with closets and a full bath. Most of the rooms also had ocean and Catalina Island views (the ones on the other side, without views, were Freshman rooms. The RSHMs included a number of Mexican nuns, whom we referred to as the little nuns (they were all very short for some reason). Essentially, the little nuns worked as maids and kitchen staff. They cleaned the buildings, including the students' rooms and bathrooms every week. Loyola was less glamorous in those days, but now LMU has lots of new dorms, and on campus apartments, some with ocean views. I don't believe that the faculty and staff includes even one RSHM these days. They have been dying off, just as the other orders have been.
The original Palos Verdes campus was sold to the Salvation Army. It is now their western HQ and conference center, sitting on land worth a literal fortune. They build a dozen homes for their "officers" there - which would sell for $2 million+ if they were on the market.
Anne, it sounds like your dorms were a little fancier than the one we had. Though ours was a new building at the time. It was round, with wedge shaped rooms and a commons area in the middle. Very space efficient, the beds were studio couches that slid out, and the dressers and closets were built into the walls. It was coed, too. The girls had the top three floors and the boys were in the basement. It hadn't been a coed school very long and there were a lot more girls than boys. I wonder what the building is being used for now.
DeleteThe nuns are the same ones that have the Manna retreat house that you see ads from on NCR sometimes.
Seems like a lot of small colleges are trying to hang on by going with online classes. Some of them basically are diploma mills.
Never owned a condo but I've heard stories. Always wondered where those condofascists came from.
ReplyDeleteCondofascists...those must be kind of like neighborhood association nazis.
DeleteKatherine, I like the idea of community but these things sound like petty dictatorships. Doubt I'll ever want to be involved in one.
DeleteThat's the nice part of living in an older, plain Jane neighborhood. We don't have to put up with that kind of thing.
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