The Wake

Blades of grass rip from the ground between your toes. You dodge bushes and trees, leap with bare feet over sidewalks. You run across Northrup Mall completely naked, breathing harder, inhaling air that isn’t there. The other side seems so far away. You need to make it across before campus security sees you. You’re nearly out of breath, not because you’re running but because your four nude limbs and torso are exposed to the campus.

Then, the sprinklers turn on.

In a week or so I’m going to graduate from the University of Minnesota. Over four years, I’ve walked in and out of classrooms, overzealous, dazed and so close to vomiting that people wouldn’t sit by me. I’ve learned a little bit in my attendance.

But there’s something about running while sprinklers cut across your naked body that gives you a little more. In fact, most of what I’ll be taking from this University didn’t come from professors. Some of it has. I’ve learned how to put words together, but you can be the judge of that. Most of my experience was found outside of lecture halls and libraries.

For instance, I’ve learned more about evolution by being punched in the face at Harvard Market East than I ever did in Biology 1001.

And I learned a lot more about human interaction than I ever did in school by watching my roommates wrestle on piles of pumpkin guts all over our living room floor.

By the way, you may have been to my house before. It’s the Green House. I wouldn’t consider it a “party house” but I’m always amazed by how many people have walked through our doors, drank our crummy beer and had sex in our bathrooms. When my roommates and I tell people we live in the Green House, people often say, “You live in the Green House?” Those italics are probably the proudest achievement of my college career.

But it wasn’t constantly a party. I’ve been through all the typical college stress. For two weeks, I toyed with the idea of having a quarter-life crisis. I contemplated dropping out of journalism, becoming an English teacher and doing nothing but smoke pot and teach high school students how to love Lawrence Ferlinghetti. But I don’t have the balls to live that dream.

As a graduating senior, I suppose it’s customary to give some sort of advice to everybody who has to keep trudging along. I don’t have much, but here it is. This is the part of the game where the coach gets down on one knee and tells the kids to “mean it” this time when they get back on the field.

If you get a chance to throw large objects, such as a Daily stand, off a third floor fire escape, do it. Sure, it may sound like a frat guy thing to do, but damn, sometimes those guys have the right idea.

And if a woman screams at you to hit her in the face, don’t do it. Even if she calls you a “fucking prick who doesn’t think a woman can take a punch,” let somebody else do it. You’ll feel better about yourself later, even if she goes on to beat the crap out of you.

If the opportunity ever arises to vomit in a trailer-home-resort 15 miles outside of Venice, Italy, do it. Carrying soiled sheets between a bunch of Italian tourists will give you some life lessons that freshman comp. doesn’t really touch on.

I’d even suggest driving 20 miles across Utah with crap in your pants because, for myself anyway, it really built some character.

The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is trying to figure out the opposite sex. I’ve contemplated the complexity of the female gender for four years and come up with absolutely nothing.

But besides that, go ahead. Take that beer bong. See what happens after exchanging glances across a room. Eat the worm. Take the run across Northrup Mall. I’m not going to tell you these are the best years of your life. I’m sure I’ll be having a blast when I have some fact-checking job at a soap opera digest. But if you play your hand right, the summation of your classes will be petty compared to what you do on the weekends. Or in my case, Wednesday through Sunday.

Of course, I wouldn’t have had a chance to do many of these things if it weren’t for the “U.” I never would have made out with somebody on the First Avenue main stage while wearing a wrestling singlet if I didn’t go to school here.

And I never would have had a surfing contest in my basement while a hundred people cheer and two guys play “Wipe Out” over and over again.

So thank you, ‘U of M.’ It’s been a good run. But I really must be going now. There’s a few things I need to attend to. But before I go, if there’s time, I may feel like taking a light jog.