SYRACUSE

My Grand College Transfer

SYRACUSE

      Syracuse, New York, August 1981, me age 20, saying goodbye to Mom and Dad from a Syracuse University housing area known as “Sky Top”-which had to be code for “ Bitter Cold, Windy, Desolate Wasteland”.   I leaned into the window of their Chrysler Cordoba to kiss Mom, but she was already rolling the power window up to escape the cold.  My head was trapped with the edge of the window carving into my nose.

     I’m screaming in pain, “Mom! Mom!  Roll the window down!!”  Mom is panicking, “What? What?”  Dad is yelling, “Syl-her HEAD is stuck in the window!  Press the button!  Press the button!”  Mom is all flustered, “What button?”  Dad leans over Mom’s rich Corinthian leather seat and presses the window button into the “down” position.

     I tried mightily but could not hold back the pain-induced tears, further complicated by my long ,permed hair, wind-whipping my face. While still sitting in the driver’s seat, Dad takes a quick look at my nose and says, “Looks like it’s going bruise up quite nicely. Put some ice on it, you’ll be fine”.  Mom says, “It’ll build character”.  And off they went, back to Maryland.  I stood there with the dark snow clouds looming wondering if I had made the right choice to come to this school so far from my family; my constant in a well-traveled life.   I was an Army Brat: a McKnight.  No trip to any medical facility.  Just had to pick myself up by my bootstraps and maintain.  I have the deviated septum to prove it.

    How did I end up at SU?

     With one year of college under my belt, as well as the subsequent year spent working at the Ft. Meade Four Season shop, I made the decision to apply to Syracuse University as a Journalism Major.

      One typewriter assisted essay later written about my lifelong struggle with math, and I was accepted to the prestigious Newhouse School of Journalism.  I had looked at the Syracuse U. pamphlet I had requested via snail mail, as that was the only mode of written transmission and decided, “Yep, looks pretty with the flowering trees, students wearing sweaters, carrying books…this is the place for me.”

       Did I look up where Syracuse was on a map?  No.  Where there any photos of eight -foot walls of snow and/or a suggestion of “Bring Artic grade outer wear to prepare for snow that begins in September and does not end until possibly the first week in May?”  No, there was not.

       There were no photos of snow of any kind in the aforementioned brochure and there sure as hell was no description of “Lake effect wind and snow”. 

      Also missing from said pamphlet, were any warnings of “Frequent White Outs, No Snow Days or Cancellation of Classes EVER!”  Oh, but how lucky for me that I would find all this out with first-hand experience.  How special, to experience this all along with my first and only bout with the scourge of FLU.

       Welcome back to 1981.  The “City Kids” referred to me as “Rebecca of Sunny Brook Farm”.  I thought I had come stylishly prepared with my Frye Boots.   I wasn’t.  I might as well have been chewing on a piece of straw, for the way they viewed my innocence.

      My understanding of this began on day one when, having been placed in the “Transfer Student” compound, Skytop.  If you are picturing a modern, Frank Lloyd-esque set of buildings, set atop a mountain top scene from The Sound of Music, you (as I was) are sadly mistaken. 

      The Skytop aesthetic was prison building chic, complete with shower room containing shower heads with no curtains, walls or doors between said heads.  My mother and I went for a little walk about the day I moved in.  Mom says, “Oh well…you’ll get used to it.  Cellulite is the great equalizer”.  Thank you, Mom.  I am warm and comforted now.  Then, we peeked into the bathroom stalls which were littered with all matters of pornographic doodles in ink. 

      Mom’s response, “Well…this is unexpected”.  Yeah!!!!  The whole damn place was “unexpected”!!  In order to get to the campus, there was a “shuttle bus” (probably rented from the local jail) which only ran a few times a day and even less on the weekends. 

     As an Army BRAT, I had spent time in many different climates both in the US and overseas.  I found out on day one, as Mom and Dad pulled away to head back to Maryland, that I was woefully underprepared.  I had packed clothing to carry me through till Thanksgiving, when I would be home for “Break”. 

     These included many pairs of shorts, some jeans and overalls, short sleeved shirts, sandals, Frye boots, Adidas sneakers, one sweater and a raincoat along with various and sundry underthings.  Little did I know, that on August 5, my little “cotton sweater” would not be enough that first evening while standing outside listening to some half rate local band on the hills of Skytop.  This was a Meet and Mingle to get to know the other inmates, I mean students who shared this “Special” place.  We were all Transfer students but apparently, I was the only one from “The South”. 

     I had never thought of Maryland as “The South”?  But, I guess any state south of the Mason Dixon Line, according to New Yorkers, is “The South”.  I was made acutely aware of how different I was from all these other students when they kept talking about “The City”.  I through my chattering teeth asked, “What city?”

     I swear even the band stopped playing as everyone stared at me as though I had uttered something blasphemous.  The chorus of “New York City, of COURSE” rang through the barren hills.  How am I supposed to know that?  There are many cities, Baltimore, Washington DC., and the list goes on…but not for New Yorkers apparently.

     I guess my blue lips finally made one of the beautiful people feel sorry for me, and he went inside, and came out with this gorgeous, cable knit, wool sweater.  The delightful aroma that he and the sweater embodied, I came to find out was “Polo” by Ralph Lauren.  He was from “The City” and was possibly the most beautiful young man I had ever seen.  Tanned, perfect teeth, curly black hair and a wardrobe more extensive than any I had ever witnessed.

     He told me to “Keep the sweater until you the rest of your clothes come”.  Hmmm…where were these mystical clothes going to come from?  I would have to call home and have Mom raid my closet and drawers to quickly clothe me in any warm clothes I owned. 

     There was one phone at the end of the hall.  One could “Rent phones” (Land lines) but you had to do that on campus and since it was the weekend, the phone rental place was not open.  The phone, much like the shower heads was just out in the open-no booth, no privacy.  The sting of pre-vomit bile was rising in my esophagus as I realized that I was farther from home than I had ever been before without my family.  Oh damn…I had thought I was homesick in the past on sleepovers, but this…this was down in my bones.  I knew there was no returning home till Thanksgiving.  Flakes of snow began to fall after the band stopped playing and we all went inside.  I didn’t even have a place to cry, because I had a roommate and she was so preppy and peppy from a rich Connecticut family that I had to swallow my tears, bile and homesickness. That’s what I “ate” for dinner that night.

      Well my readers, more to come on my Syracuse Adventures.  Drop me a comment below on a time when you were homesick or perhaps felt like the proverbial fish out of water.