Homecoming, the Good Ole Days

It is always special to return to Stillwater, where I remember several different lifetimes. The weekend started out as a time to remember the college years. Eventually the college crew went their separate ways and two lifetimes merged as I walked across campus with Dad and Ryder. It's amazing how the town and the campus have modernized dramatically since I was a student, even more-so since I was a kid, but for the most part they've maintained their small college town charm.

Although the campus walk reminded me of my reprobate friends, it also reminded me of hard work, and how the college years prepared me for my career and taught me many valuable skills that future jobs would refine. I'm very thankful for these educational opportunities which could not have happened without my parents' very generous financial support.

It brought back memories as we walked in front of the beautiful Edmon Lowe Library. No campus visit is complete without a trip up to the English literature section on the 4th floor, where I spent countless afternoons head down on a desk, taking naps between classes. To this day, the smell of the old books makes me nostalgic and sleepy, but that wasn't the reason I wanted to walk the campus with Dad.

I longed for a chance to walk up the cold, gray stairs of the physical science building to the chemistry labs, where the smell of acetone always lingered when I was Norah and Justin's age. The smell of solvent (which smells similar to finger nail polish remover) is another time transporting odor that will forever remind me of some of my earliest trips on campus when Dad was working on his PhD. He always shared a pack of grape flavored "Bubblicious" gum and took me with him when he needed to go check on his experiments at the laboratory. I don't remember the layout, but the lab was filled with crazy glass spirals, and slowly bubbling liquids dripping into glassware, which was pretty darned cool. While he worked, I colored at his desk with a full assortment of pencils and templates Dad used to diagram his glassware.

Sadly, today there was no acetone odor as campus modernization relocated all of the chemistry labs to a new building, one that houses none of our memories, but requires security clearance. Never the less, it was fun to be back in this place and listen to my father talk about the way things used to be. I heard stories about things I don't remember much, but also once familiar names I haven't heard in years, including an Indian graduate student that used to buy chocolate milk for me at the Dairy Bar. It seems the really good memories are always triggered by scents, tastes, places and the company you keep.