I mentioned earlier how much like home AC felt on my arrival; it felt just as much like leaving home to depart. I spent the day on campus, touring the hallowed halls and walking the greens. This past evening in the full moonlight I retraced a path I trod many an evening, from Baker Hall (my dorm of three years) to Clyce Hall (the dorm many of the gals I knew lived in)—only now there was no girl to walk to the door; no Baker room to return to; no future, but only past.
I drove by the house I once lived in—a terrible, run-down place now, but dear to me then. I went through downtown Sherman, that den of land agents and lawyers—the downtown I used to walk to that wondrous summer. I saw professors, now older and greyer; I saw friends and acquaintances, also older and greyer. I saw the empty lot where a once-great hall stood, another empty lot which had been a cafeteria and gathering-place, and yet another lot which was the site of many a fine party. The accumulated memories of the four best years of my life returned in force.
There is a photo in the Tri-Gam 1996–1997 album which shows a young man smiling with his friends. He’s hardly more than a boy (just beginning to grow the traces of a beard), with limitless options and nothing but bright expectations. He’s happy and cheerful; the very world itself lay at his feet. He died five years ago.
