Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I would share with you the start of a love story. About a blonde girl from Bountiful and a crazy Canuck from up north.
{But since I have a propensity to be long winded and since I want to not leave out any details, this may take awhile - as in, several posts.}
It was the fall of 1990. I headed down to BYU for my Freshman year with high hopes of transforming into an adult overnight. Being on my own was an exhilarating thought but what I didn't really comprehend was that being on my own at this point really meant only waking myself up each morning, getting to my classes on time, studying on my own, and somehow getting nourishment into my system. See, my parents paid for everything. EVERYTHING. Housing, food, clothing, tuition, books and supplies, trips to the candy counter at the bookstore. I thought I was big and mature and experiencing life in a world of academia , but I was just playing grown up at college on my mom and dad's dime. I thought it was fun to write checks for the first time in my life, but didn't make the connection that most people have to earn the money that goes into their accounts. True, I did go home on the occasional weekend and work at our family owned video store (can I hear a shout out for Adventureland Video?) but financial stressers would not be a part of my regime for the time being. Yes, I was a privileged kid off at college ready to experience every detail that higher education had to offer and, because I didn't have to hold down a job, I had the time to do it.
Boy did I have fun that Freshman year.
Go ahead and say it. Go ahead. (Whisper - " She looks so young!")
Yes, I was young. 18 years old.
That was 20 years ago friends.
With only classes to (occasionally) attend, homework to (usually) do, FHE brothers to (always) flirt with, and roommates to (continually) entertain, it was a rip roarin' (mostly) squeaky clean party for those first 8 months of university life. My roommates and I stayed up entirely too late every night and talked, and laughed, and did parodies of SNL skits. We got a hold of my parent's video camera and made our own horror movies (complete with ketchup-blood in the shower), commercials on feminine hygiene products, and had plenty of get togethers with those cute FHE brothers. Times were fun and for once in my life I completely let loose and threw caution to the wind.
That's why I got a 2.4 my first semester.
I had been a student with impeccable grades up until that point. A high school graduate who toted high honors and a cumulative 3.85 GPA. The mistake I made - initially - with my whole BYU experience was thinking that I could make it to 8:30 a.m. classes. Heavens, I had started high school at 7:30 a.m. so having classes an hour later would be a luxury, right? But alas - my good intentions for rising early in the morning to be a studious student were debunked by my need to watch and analyze and dissect every new episode of 90210. Or create the next masterpiece theater home video with my roommates. Or prank call those cute FHE brothers. Or bake brownies at 2:00 in the morning in effort to keep up with those Freshman 15.
This girl needs more than 5 hours of sleep a night to succeed in college.
Don't ask because I have no answers. I guess we were playing dress up. Apparently, I was the horse riding pirate streetwalker, Jen was the Amish woman, and Michelle was doing a deodorant ad.
So succeed in school I didn't, but live life to the Freshman fullest I did. With fall came the football season and my roommates and I bought season tickets. Our group of seats moved from one section to another with each home game, but we generally moved around the stadium with the same group of people sitting around us. In front of us, there was usually a group of Freshman guys who were quite entertaining to watch. They were completely absorbed in the games and were not shy about verbalizing their sideline expertise. There was one guy who stood out from the rest. Yes, stood out because he was the loudest and most obnoxious and most vocal amongst his friends. I remember he wore a Syracuse University jacket.
In a sea of BYU blue, he wore a Syracuse University jacket.
It was several months later that I finally learned his name.
And no, his name was not Jeff.
***
To be continued...
3 comments:
I have that EXACT SAME BYU T-shirt that some young girl is wearing in that photo! ;) It was my Utah County roommates' shirt and somehow it ended up at home with me after we were done....I use it exclusively to work out it, so I can SWEAT all over it! Ryan has a heart attack every time I do! :)
I'm trying to remember Adventureland video....where was it? Not in 5 Point Mall, was it? No - I think that was Top Hat Video....Remind me.
Adventureland Video was in Centerville near Albertsons. It was there for years. Top Hat in 5 Points WAS an Adventureland in the early years. Adventureland Video was my dad's company that he started with a partner. Once the company was sold, the 5 Points store broke away and became Top Hat.
Oh my goodness! That seems like yesterday and a million years ago all at the same time. Funny pics.
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