II
I was socially quite dumb. I came to college thinking of it as college. I wanted to fit in to the "in" crowd.
The registration process was grueling for me. In 1965, we stood in long lines to do nearly anything at all.
By the time I found the right building for freshman advising, and the right advisor, and the suggested class list, I was tired. I went home. The next day I got myself to registration. The lines for each department remained awful. I finally got myaelf registered for english because I knew I was a good writer. Then I registered for biology because I was a good biology student. I registered for chemistry because I needed it to be a pre-med student. I think I gave up and went home again. I had a lot of chores to do. My mom did daily cooking and shopping. So I was, as the eldest of five, in charge of cleaning. Lastly, the next day, I registered for political science because a liberal arts student had to take poli sci in order to graduate. These days, if you don't have a bunch of money, university officials know you won't need to know the political landscape. Perhaps they even hope you won't! Even the educated person is more malleable to the monied if unknowing as regards the machinations of policy makers.Having to wear real clothes was overwhelming. After twelve years of Catholic school uniforms, I had to struggle each day to find something not too summery to wear.
I had never actually shopped for clothes on a regular basis. My mother had usually gotten what she found on sale for first Fridays. First Fridays were the days we were allowed to wear real clothes at school in high school. Sale clothes were not normally in style. So I hesitated about wearing them as a new adult.
I proved to be a bit of an oddity in high school, not just in the area of fashion, though.
There were about nine of us black students in a class of about one hundred. We were nearly all ethnic, but only a few of us were black. I knew the kids from first and fourth grade a little better than I knew the other black students, who came to school around eighth grade. For one thing, most of the black students seemed to have families with more disposable income. All our money seemed to go every month to rent and utilities.
Somehow, even though we were so few, I didn't know most of the other black students very well. I lived a pretty isolated life. My family likely had quite a terrible reputation. I started that school at age six, in grade one. I stayed until age seventeen and eleven months, for graduation. Now, I did want to find out what the majority of big city black young were like in the year of my graduation. I lived in a mixed neighborhood from grade one through eight. But by grade nine, my parents had moved to an all white professional neighborhood. One other black family lived there ... a lady reverend. Those neighborhoods were another thing complicating my assimilation into my own group.
III
By the time I got registered for classes, I think I had missed a few meetings. I didn't worry about it. I worried about not looking so awkward.Wayne State was a major state university. So in the sixties, September, January, and April saw throngs at the start of each quarter. The semester system was to come much later. So when the term began, midterm exams were already close at hand. When I saw familiar faces, then, I was glad to find out what they had registered for, where their classes were, etc. These were my high school classmates. I realized when I saw them on campus that I hadn't even known we were going to attend the same post secondary institution. These high school classmated were in the main, male. I realized at some point during twelfth grade, that most of the girls weren't encouraged to attend university. There were only a few black guys. Ronnie, one of the black men who attended this college was quiet. I never actually knew him. He is last I heard, a local attorney. Tom, who I loved madly from the time I was about six, had always ignored me. He got a football scholarship to a college I can't recall the name of now. Leon seemed to believe I was weird, and weird-looking. Harry also got a football scholarship. I never got to know Harry.
However, when I got to university and found where the black students sat in the main cafeteria, I found a seat there whenever I could, at the height of the lunch hours. I found where black students studied in the lounges on the second, but mostly the third floor of Mackenzie Hall, formerly on the corner of Detroit's Cass and Putnam streets. I gravitated there as though I were a small piece of aluminum foil, and those spots were giant magnets.
My old high school friends showed a fair amount of dismay that I sequestered myself in this group
of black students, almost exclusively. I especially disappointed my friend Eric. Eric should have
stayed my friend. I still feel like a terribly traitorous pal. Eric was the most friendly, honest person anyone could ever know; but I hadn't hung out with him before we graduated high school
What happened? Black male pride happened, along with my yearning for black male companionship.
I began to be irritating to the males on the third floor student hang-out, because whenever I showed up, I showed up with Eric, who was very blond with very blue eyes. As far as Eric was concerned, he and I could always study together. Neither of us had romances going at that time. From my point of view, I had a sneaking suspicion I would have to start dating. I couldn't get these guys angry. So when I told Eric I had better begin to meet him in some other place, he felt some insult. I don't blame him because these were people I didn't even know. I didn't know what to do, aside from allude to the fact that the blame belonged completely to circumstance. Things may not have been any warmer between us, though, if I had outlined my own more personal motives for not arriving together so often.
Before the first two quarters were over, I'd lost track of all my high school friends, Eric, Joe, Veronica, but I'd met a lot of young black people. Carolyn was one of them.
IV
