Reflections on a Blessed and Happy Life No. 27: Off to College

  My17th summer was exciting and full. I graduated from high school, worked full-time at a café (while renting a room near-by) played on a very good softball team and a mediocre baseball team. We celebrated VE Day, were excited and also worried by atom bombs being dropped in Japan, We rejoiced and celebrated_VJ Day and then off to college.

I headed for what was then called Concordia Teachers College-River Forest, IL (now Concordia University Chicago. There was never any consideration for even a minute that I would go anywhere else. My father had graduated from there 25 years earlier-and that is where I was headed.

Mother faithfully helped me get ready. She found a big “steamer trunk” which she could use to send my “stuff.” She saw to it that I go\t my first pair of gloves and even an overcoat. (I hated it then and still don’t like wearing one.)

I contacted four other Texans who were also headed to R.F. and coordinated rail travel The railroad people told us not to travel over Labor Day as the end-of the-war traffic was overwhelming everything. On the day of travel Mother gave me my most important carry-on; namely food for the journey. There was no way on earth we would have the funds to eat in the train diner. Mother fried chicken (having butchered the chicken herself) made lots of homemade bread. Stuffed in a couple dozen cookies and secured it all in a good sturdy bag.

Dad had his last minute instructions, which included a few words that were not characteristic of him at all. He said  “Melvin, when my father put me on the train to go to River Forest when I was 15 years old he said to me ‘If you are expelled, don’t bother coming home’.” He left it at that. I think he wanted me to take this business seriously-but it was just not in his oh so kind nature to threaten me with self-expulsion from the family.

The train was full. The ride long. We changed trains in St. Louis. As we went toward our new coach (of course, we had no reserved seats) I walked outside the train cars and looked in for a few seats. As we went by one car I said to my buddies “Oh. There are a few seats in that car, but we can’t go there. That car is for colored only!” The porter alongside me heard those words and almost roared at me, “Get in that car young man, you are no longer in the South. From here we all ride together!”

Dad had given us detailed instruction on how to get from Chicago’s Union Station to River Forest via the El and then a walk of a couple miles.. But when we got to the train depot some relatives of one of our roommates were there. They drove us to R.F. They were great.

College orientation went smoothly. Of course, I noticed that in contrast to the boys-only student body of my high school there were “girls” on this campus. We did not pay much attention to them nor they to us-, except for a couple of them who took more to my strange Texas cowboy boots than to me and that was okay too.

Our dorm arrangement was that 8 of us shared two rooms, one for study and one for sleeping. The eight of us got along together well. I sadly report that of those 8 I am the sole survivor.

I am absolutely positive I did not telephone my folks that I had safely arrived on campus. That would have been unthinkable. I do hope that as I settled in I said a special prayer of thanks to my whole family as all of them made “Sending Mel off to College“ a family project.