I'm in Los Angeles, California with 3 grad school friends. We are all quite a few years out of grad school, and three of us are still in the game while one is quite happily a mom and book editor, free of the academic constraints.We get together occasionally over a summer when our families can negotiate a location somewhere near each other.
That's not really the important thing.
The important thing was a memory we all shared last night about drinking and grad school. We recalled drinking beers in the TA offices in between teaching, having one on one conferences with students, etc. It wasn't as if we were falling down drunk. It wasn't a memory for ANY of us that struck us as shameful.
But as we recalled the stories as a group we were absolutely stupefied that we'd done it at all.
One of us said, "Was that really a part of the culture of that time? That college? Of us?"
None of us has a drinking problem now. A couple never have more than a glass of wine once every so often. But we recalled how we had a small mini fridge in the shared offices where we put notes atop our six packs of Bud and Coors to denote whose brews were whose!
My father ran a very respectable career as a raging alcoholic. I can't figure out how people functioned when they drank like fish. Were the jobs easier then? Or are we just dumber now?
ReplyDeleteI keep a bottle of scotch at the office. An occasional swig helps to clear the mind and invigorate the soul.
ReplyDeleteJudging by your fuzzy-visioned, rosy-nose picture, I postulate that you might be in denial about not having a drinking problem!
ReplyDeleteI never officially had a drink with/around an undergraduate.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I ran into enough of them out on the town (most of them under 21) that this was mostly a formality.
Once, as an undergrad, a group of friends joined me on my apartment's balcony so that we could philosophize as we watched Skylab fall. It was a Tuesday night, and we were all six in a section of upper-level Basketweaving critical seminar that met at 8:00 am Wednesdays. Of course, there was some drinking involved. It was an all-nighter, and dawn's approach cautioned us not to tempt sleep. I remember stalking determinedly as a group the little-more-than-a-mile to campus from downtown, a couple of the guys toting sixers to keep us hydrated as we made the trek. I do not know how we avoided arrest; our path took us directly past the local constabulary, and we were hootingly and howlingly wasted. We had gone early so we'd have time to get a bagel; sober up, ya know? We DID make it to class on time, but the prof--a favorite of all of us--promptly switched off the lights and flicked on the projector (yeah, this was the olden days; didja catch the reference to Skylab?), and my buds promptly began passing out, drooling on desktops and snoring mightily away whilst I attempted to prod and cajole them ("C'mon you guuuyysss, I think he knoooowsss!") into wakefulness. I am shame-filled to this day.
ReplyDeleteMrs. C, thanks for the great story!
ReplyDeleteThey loved booze at Northeatern Ghetto Tech....most of the kids had lived sheltered, controlled lives and they would drink themselves into oblivion EVERY TIME, and would have to be carried back (if a woman) to the dorms, left to rot in an alley if male. I had a very nerdly friend who I will call Steve-Dave; you put some liquor into him and he became this giggling neckbearded spaz...I was thrown out of certain South Street dives because he could not handle his booze. Meanwhile I do not act crazy; the more I drink the quieter I get, you can spot me at the bar - I'm the guy in the corner scribbling things into a pad while downing Guinness like soda. NGT's problem is that everybody in Pretzelton (the town NGT is in) drinks like a fish, but they are hypocritical about it, and their idiot offspring are trying to find the key to the liquor cabinet after age 11.
ReplyDeleteYes, great story, Mrs. C!
ReplyDeleteGrad school had a bar that we generally adjourned to after the weekly seminar, but if anyone drank before T.A.ing, I didn't know.
As an undergrad, however, my first success came after an evening of procrastination through bong hits. The assignment involved five pages on some aspect of life in Hellenistic times as documented by Plutarch. Ye gods.
After a few hours of "trendy chemical amusement aid" (to quote Zappa, who never touched the stuff), it occurred to me that the use of elephants in Hellenistic warfare marked certain commanders as absurdly narcissistic and quixotic. I pulled an all-nighter to document this, and earned the only A in the class from a gentle man who seemed amused as he handed my paper back.
Hmm. . .I'm beginning to suspect that Strelnikov shares an alma mater with one of my (long-deceased) grandfathers. But grandpa was there in a more abstemious era -- at least for good Methodist Sunday school graduates who had taken the pledge, and were attending night school while working 9-5.
ReplyDelete@Eskarina: I suspect he appreciated the original thought, wherever it came from.
Many people drank in college and did not end up raging alcoholics. College and drinking go together like a horse and carriage. Granted most people do their heavy drinking as undergrads but grad students have been known to party as well. As far as whether drinking is really part of the college culture, yeah, it is. It's not quite as shocking as you think. It's actually pretty typical, and there is really no reason to be stupified that you drank a lot in college.
ReplyDelete"Many people drank in college and did not end up raging alcoholics. College and drinking go together like a horse and carriage. Granted most people do their heavy drinking as undergrads but grad students have been known to party as well."
ReplyDelete- Programming Patty
I'm guessing you didn't have a drunk suite-mate stumble into your room and wipe his blood onto your wall*, or witness said drunk suite-mate's little drunkie friends piss in your shower for no Got-damned good reason. I'm not against booze; I'm against stupid people drinking themselves into unconscious states. My two suite-mates met Steve-Dave and Randal** and then later had to be re-introduced to them because they had met S-D and R while in a "blacked-out" state. Their friends were worse; one girl had to be carried back to the dorm after a long night at three different frat parties, and the other two girls were always asking me to get them booze because I was "of age." So no, I am not a fan of freshman drinking.
______________________________
* He had gotten into a fistfight with a wall he didn't like; his friend the local dope dealer helped him past security in the lobby.
** Not their real names; I was going to call Randal "Ben Grimm", but The Thing is heroic and Randal never was. We later lived in a rowhouse far off campus, but that's another story.
Yes, this was Northeastern Ghetto Tech, the only school I lived at.
I wasn't speaking out in favor of college drinking, merely stating that college students drink a lot and there's no reason to be "absolutely stupified" at the memory of drinking in college. It's so typical as to be actually fairly run-of-the-mill behaviour for college students, and the idea that three people were "absolutely stupified" at their collective memory of drinking in college is surprising. Unless they are Amish or something? There must be more to this story than "OMG we drank a lot in grad school, how shocking!"
ReplyDeleteFour day late reply:
ReplyDeleteThey are "stupified" that they drank so much because most of their imbibing was done on top of the drinking that got them blind drunk in the first place. I know it's to be expected, but when you are the "old man" watching the tyros destroy themselves, you wince a lot.