My Life As A Hobby

Our teacher walked in, sat down among us, looked around the room, and said: “If anybody in here can name all the Kardashian sisters and can’t name a justice on the Supreme Court, then you probably don’t need to be in my class.” If he wanted my attention, he got it. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never heard a teacher begin a first class that way. My fellow pupils, an assortment of seniors and graduate students, gave each other short, uneasy glances. Truthfully, I thought, “Uh oh. I’m not sure I know the answer to either one. I hope he doesn’t start asking questions.” Welcome to Advanced Magazine Writing with Rick Bragg, the graduate class I’m auditing at the University of Alabama. Before I enrolled, I asked my niece, who had taken the course, what to expect. She said, “It’s very good, but he can be intimidating.” I suppose that’s true if you’re a 21-year-old worried about your GPA. But since I’m older than the professor and not getting a grade, I found Rick’s curmudgeonly antics ...

It was quite a scene at the Dollar General store in Margaret, Alabama. People rushed out the doors carrying poster board, silver balloons, and rolls of crepe paper. The party supply aisle looked as if a mob of looters had swept through. Outside, throngs of white-haired grandparents frantically taped their hastily made decorations onto cars, trucks, and even motorcycles. Some might call it excessive, even a little crazy. We call it something else: the Grandparents Day Parade at my granddaughter’s elementary school. Fortunately, we were spared the Dollar General chaos. The night before, I bought a hot-pink sheet of poster board and cut out a crude heart using my wife’s good scissors, of course. After writing my granddaughter’s name in large letters, we secured it to the car window with strapping tape, then took our place in line with the other parade participants. And waited. And waited. And waited. There must have been hundreds of decorated vehicles, ranging from modest to downright ...

It was my first day of school and I was bit unnerved. After all, it’s been 50 years since I’ve taken a class at The University of Alabama .  And in that half century, everything seems to have changed. The campus has sprouted enough new buildings to make a second college. And while the core of the campus is familiar, I’m uncomfortable with a lot of  the new academic sprawl Every empty space, no matter how small, seems to have a new structure  on it. I’m sure that’s because the student population has more than doubled since I last wore a fraternity jacket . Streets I drove on don’t exist anymore; instead there are new ones that take me to parts of the campus I’ve never seen before.   Even some of the old buildings have been refaced to give the campus an  uniform look - but they’re  almost unrecognizable to me.  At least the Quad is  still untouched - for now.  The whole campus teemed with students  pouring in and out of classrooms, remindi...

It was near the end of summer in 1965. The beginning of school hung over me like a dark shadow. What’s worse, before it even began, I had to take a trip to the ACIPCO medical center to get up to date on all my shots. After two sticks in the arm without shedding one tear, mom awarded my bravery by walking me over to dad’s office. If the timing was right, I got to hang around until quitting time and ride home with him. It also almost certainly meant a trip to Dean’s Den.  Dean’s Den was a beer joint. My dad and my uncle stopped there regularly to knock back a couple before they headed home. And if I was with him, I got to knock back my drink of choice, an ice cold Grapico.  A beer joint may be hard to describe, but you’ll know when you see one. And Dean’s was one.  A squatty concrete block building, with faded white paint and a gravel parking lot sat on a corner of Main Street in Tarrant City - a blue collar suburb of Birmingham.   Dean’s Den was small and looke...

Well, in just a few days it’s going to happen. A small number of students at the University of Alabama will discover that a species of dinosaur still exists - one that is quite rare, but isn’t  quite extinct.   Specifically, this variety of dinosaur walks slowly on two legs, carry’s  an iPad ., and gets a Social Security check.  The scientific name is Antiquitus Academius , which is commonly known as “very  old student”. And if you haven’t guessed,  the dinosaur is me - a 71 year-old man who’s headed back to college. Even though I’m merely auditing a course on magazine writing ,  I will guarantee you I’m the oldest student on campus during the fall semester.   In the world of academia, going back to college school  in your late thirties is considered ancient. At 71, I’m sure to be considered prehistoric. I’m older than the professor, for goodness sake. Rather than be embarrassed by the situation, I’ve decided to have fun with it. For exa...

There are a lot of sci-fi movies and Twilight Zone episodes about someone who invents a time machine and goes back in time to make a change in their lives.  However, they soon discover it causes huge repercussions in the present day.  But what happens when part of your past comes back into your life in the here and now? I think the honest answer is: you can’t be sure. It depends on the circumstances.  I’ll let you know. That’s because last week I checked my voicemail and discovered a very unusual message. It was from Jean, a girl from my distant past, who wanted to talk to me. I was genuinely surprised for two reasons: It was almost 50 years ago - that’s a half-century, folks. Our relationship ended when she broke it off with me. That hurt eventually mellowed into fond memories I’ve pressed between the pages of my mind, like an old flower. I revisit them now and again. I’ve even written about the breakup, because I believe the pain of loss is an important life lesson t...