Huckaby: A walk through the University of Georgia campus, and through memory lane
I was walking across campus, the other day, at the great and glorious University of Georgia, hallowed be thy name.
My lovely wife, Lisa, and I do that every Saturday. We park at our normal tailgate spot on Agriculture Drive, sit at our table for a few minutes, and then hike to the stadium and around North Campus. I figure if I do it enough times between now and September, I will be able to do it when football season gets here.
Honesty compels me to admit that it’s a tougher walk than it was twenty years ago - or even ten. I hope I have one more season left in me. If not, 2021 wasn’t a bad one to close out on.
The last few weeks we have seen a lot of students gathered at the bridge overlooking Sanford Stadium having their pictures made with the stadium in the background, and a lot of seniors in caps and gowns posing in front of The Arch. Precious memories... Old times there...
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I’m betting not a one of them realizes how precious those memories will turn out to have been.
But we have also seen several groups of prospective students being shown around campus by current students, which was evidenced by the confident air born of having been there and done that - with harried and overmatched parents, of course, trailing along behind.
I smiled when I saw those groups, thinking back to the time when I was the worried parent tagging along behind each of my three children, three years apart, as they were each preparing to matriculate to my alma mater.
I remember being most impressed by the food service during my kids’ orientation sessions. J. Michael Floyd was the man in charge, and he was world-renowned - the Kirby Smart of his profession. I also remembered being so impressed by the caliber of high school seniors that UGA was attracting, and proud that my three children were all among them.
I met my good friends, Jerry and Beverly Varnado at my youngest daughter’s orientation. That would have been Jenn, a.k.a Danger. It’s OK. She’s a nurse, now in the Critical Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Piedmont Hospital in downtown Atlanta. We all would up sitting at breakfast one morning, discussing breaking news about former UGA Director and Athletics, Damon Evans. It’s funny what you remember.
My kids did well at Georgia. We have one doctorate out of the bunch, so far, as well as a few Bachelor’s degrees and a couple of Master's degrees. Glory, glory.
Last week, as I was making my way back to our car after thoroughly exploring the campus, my mind went way back, and I began to reflect on my own UGA orientation - in the summer of 1970.
Never in the whole long history of the world has a less sophisticated human being enrolled in a major southern university. I was as green as the grass at Augusta National in April. But what a weekend we had.
I attended orientation with a high school friend - Bob Lunsford - with whom I would later share an apartment - R7 - at Callaway Gardens Apartments on the Atlanta Highway. If the walls of R7 could talk - well, let’s just say I am glad that they cannot.
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We stayed at Myers Hall for orientation, in a second-floor room that overlooked the quad. A young man named Sanders Luellen shared the room with us. I am not sure that I ever saw Sanders Luellen after orientation, but I never forgot his name. Bob Lunsford came down sick while we were there, with what turned out to be mononucleosis. I hope I am not violating some HIPAA law by revealing that, but it has been 52 years and Bob passed away several years ago.
Bob was a pharmacist, by the way, so he made the best of his time at UGA. I managed to graduate, but still haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up.
There were a couple of highlights to my orientation session. One was meeting a couple of girls from Macon - Julie Blair and Teresa Vinson - with whom I would remain friends throughout college. I also hit a grand slam home run in the afternoon softball game, which might be the crowning achievement of my humble athletic career.
A lot has changed at UGA since the summer of 1970. The size of the student body has doubled, for instance, and the football stadium now boasts a second, third and even fourth tier - and lights. Everyone walks around with cell phones nowadays, but nobody actually talks on the phones. They tap out messages with their thumbs and surf the Internet.
We did have opposable thumbs in 1970 but had not evolved to the point of being able to use them to communicate electronically.
People always ask, “if you could go back and do it all over again, knowing everything you do now, would you?”
In a New York minute, hoss. In a New York minute.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Huckaby: A walk through campus, and through memory lane
