School Days

 I was sent a questionnaire by the University of Colorado. 

My alma mater. My old mater. 

I understand that this was yet another attempt to get me to connect in ways beyond my somewhat frequent stories of those hazy days of my misspent youth. 

They wanted money. 

But to their credit, first they asked me a ton of multiple choice questions attempting to divine my ambivalent feelings toward the institution that awarded me with my Bachelor of Arts degree. I ticked the boxes that I felt applied, but I also wanted to try and express my connection to the college town in which I grew up. 

In many ways, it was a matter of fact that I would matriculate across town from elementary school to junior then senior high landing eventually at the top of The Hill. That's where you go to college. My parents both attended. Both my brothers did as well. My older brother and I were the ones to receive a diploma. For the most part, the University of Colorado was our convenient stop for higher education. 

And football games. 

And binge drinking. 

Of those last two bits, only the athletic department was specifically mentioned in the survey. 

Mostly, I was there to complete a liberal arts field of study that took me just a couple more years than the prescribed four to complete. Hint: it wasn't the football games that added to my stay. 

Eventually, I found myself with enough credits to graduate, and I went to a ceremony where I word a rented cap and gown along with several hundred other BA recipients. At the prescribed moment, I moved my tassel from right to left confirming my status as an alumni. 

Itwas not long before I started receiving mail from CU, asking me to fork over more dollars to help continue this grand traditions in which I had apparently been involved: higher education. At one point, after my father passed away I felt the nudge to make a small donation to the College of Arts and Sciences at the University. This was an amusing way to reference not his time there as a student, but the time he put in as a season ticket holder for the Golden Buffalo football team. 

I made a similar investment after my mother died, in honor of the fact that she held on to those season tickets after my parents' divorce and continued to invite me along on Satruday afternoons until I moved to California. 

There were not any appropriate check boxes to click to describe this experience. Nor was there a place for me to share that I continue to have a University of Colorado pennant over the doorway of my classroom in Oakland, California. It's there, but I don't think about it all the time. 

Which is a lot like my relationship to my alma mater.