Chapter 6: College Makes You Smart?

I thought the sawmill had intimidated me, but that was just labor work. Now I was in college! I couldn’t help feeling like a fish out of water. After all I was a loser dropout, clearly not college material, but I wanted to preach the gospel. I wanted to share my faith with people who needed help. And so, if this were what I had to do to be able to do that then I would do it with all my heart. And if I failed... then at least I tried. I moved into my dorm room. A lot of the people there had been preparing their whole lives for college. They knew who their roommates would be. They had matching furniture and sheets. They had college funds. Not me. Thank God. I appreciated the opportunity and felt blessed to get to be there at all, despite my past. When I went to college, my mother bought me some laundry detergent and deodorant and she said, “I know you are going to do well. I believe in you.” That is worth more than any college fund to me.

I met my roommate. He was a lot of fun. His name was Kyle. We got along great. We didn’t sleep much. We stayed up way too late every night talking about life and what we would be and what our goals were and girls and whatever else came to mind. We were also prank kings in the school. The great thing about being poor is that you have to be creative, which seems to be harder for rich people. You have to learn how to make it on nothing somehow, so you do. It is fun!

I was there to learn to preach, but I only got to take a few religion classes. I had to take a bunch of required classes. If I had it to do over I would have just taken what interested me instead. I wasted so much time learning pointless stuff that I will never use. I did learn a lot, however. The most important lesson I learned is that college people weren’t any smarter than me, or anyone else for that matter. They were just in school a little longer because they had the opportunity to be there. Most of them barely scraped by and only went because their parents made them. However, they will get the “good jobs” because of that precious piece of paper.

Do you know what you call a guy who got D’s all the way through medical school?

Answer: Doctor.

Of course there are some people who actually apply themselves and have some natural talent, but overall I was unimpressed with the intelligence of the “educated idiots”.

I also learned that it was harder for me to try to live a Christian life when surrounded by Christians at a Christian school. Out in the real world if someone is messed up they usually know it and deep down they are searching for an answer to their problems. They may not say it, but inside they know they are lost. I can live with that. Honest people. They may laugh at me or tell me to shut up... or they may listen. Either way, they aren’t pretending. In a church or Christian school it isn’t that cut and dry. Everyone knows the right things to say and do in the presence of the right people, but their actions a lot of the time are much worse then the “worldly people” and the “heathens”. They are hypocrites, but they don’t even see it. You can’t really tell someone he is a hypocrite. And how do they know to change if they don’t think there is a problem?

The same thing happened with the early church. Christians were persecuted and killed for their faith from the time of Jesus until 330 A.D. Naturally, if you may die for saying something you think long and hard before you professed it publicly. And there had to be a real change in someone for them to say they were a Christian at all. This weeded out a lot of the hypocrites and people teetering on the edge. Christians were fed to the lions and wild animals, they were burned alive, they were crucified, they were beaten, cut in two, and every other torturous thing you could do to a person. Their testimony to the world was that they renounce their faith even in the face of death.

As the lions would be running at them they would calmly stand and sing praises to God. Without fear they would stand in the face of danger. And the world stood by and watched as they were murdered. But the world stood in awe! What kind of a man gives no thought for his life when it can be bought just by denying their God? What kind of person would rather die than betray Jesus? A Christian! That’s who. Someone who has been bought with the blood of Jesus and knows they are no better then their master. Someone who knows that their killers don’t hate him, but Jesus in him. That is powerful! And so instead of shrinking their numbers grew!

In 330 A.D. Constantine was the Roman Emperor. He saw a vision to put a cross on all his shields and armor. So his whole army did as he said. They went into battle and won by an enormous margin. At that point he declared the entire Roman Empire to be Christian. The Romans were used to having their religion change every other month that ends in a “Y” so they went with it. If Caesar said worship me, the people would... or they would die. If he said to worship a Greek or Roman god or goddess they would, or they would die. If he said to worship an iron statue they would and if he said to worship Jesus they did that too. The Roman Empire dissolved and the Roman Catholic Church was born. The last Caesar was the first pope. All of the sudden everyone professed to be a Christian and said all the right things, but their hearts were far from God. Christianity sadly became what it never should have been... a religion.

I do not doubt that people mean well. Just like they meant well with the Crusades and so many other crimes against humanity done in the name of God. My point is that when everyone thinks they are the chosen people and that everyone else is going to hell, bad things happen. I would rather be in a place where we are all struggling to find the right path and we can admit that we could be wrong. I would rather be in a place where the way you treat people is more important than what doctrine you adhere to. Most people don’t even really know the doctrine that the church they go to professes anyway. And it is a rare thing to find someone who actually lives what they believe. That is the true test of faith, though! You should never have to say a word. You should write your faith, with no words, upon your sleeve, and by your actions everyone will know what you believe. If you are asked then tell, but if not… shut up!

Enough about that, I had to take this blow off class to be considered a full time student in the third term. It was called “Camp Counseling Outdoor Education”. I remember almost nothing about that class except these two things. One, my professor (who was also a coach) said “Quote” more times in a day then the average person said in their lifetime. It was so distracting! I tried not to laugh out loud at the guy, but I finally had to make tally marks of how many times he would say quote in a single class period.

37! He said it 37 freakin’ times in less then an hour! It was unbelievable! I showed up early the next day and wrote it on the board. “Quote. A whopping 37 times on ____ (whatever the date was)”. I thought it was pretty funny. The professor walked in with a smile, glanced at the board, and his heart sink. He got really quiet and hung his head down low. He said, “I think I know who wrote this and yes I do have a problem with fixating on certain words. Before ‘quote’ it was something else. I’ll try to work on it.” He didn’t say anything else about it. He also never said, “quote” again, ever. I felt like dirt! I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.

Later in the term he said something very profound. He was talking about being a camp counselor, which was about as interesting to me as watching grass grow. When out of nowhere he said, “ As a camp counselor or as any person you have a lot of responsibility to everyone around you. There is always someone looking up to you. There is always someone who idolizes you and watches your every move. There is always someone falling in love with your smile. No matter who you are or how insignificant you may feel. There is always someone who sees you as their hero, and it usually is NOT the person you think.”

Wow! How profound, but how simple and true! I know that there were people that I looked up to that probably didn’t know that I watched them, so there must be people that do the same thing to me without my knowledge. People that seem tough on the outside, but are searching desperately for answers inside. Fragile people who don’t want you to know that they are watching you because they want to see you for who you really are. I have noticed that people always talk when the Christian falls. On the outside you hear them say condescending things about how we are all hypocrites and that nobody really does what they believe anyway so why even bother trying. Don’t trust anyone because they are all dirty...just like us.

It seems that everyone is watching for the Christian to fall, but I think deeper down it is because they all want the Christian to succeed. They want to see someone really believe and act on it. They want to know it can be done... so they can try as well. Since we are all sheep no one wants to be the first. So we all stutter around aimlessly hoping inside desperately that someone will show us the way to live and to show us the way home. That statement was worth the whole year. I will never forget that.
To this day I live my life as if I am constantly being watched...especially when I’m alone. I try to live with integrity so as to set an example. This doesn’t mean I always do, but I am quick to admit my shortcomings and as soon as I find them out I make every effort to try to overcome them. You see when you fall; you never fall alone. And when you stand you don’t just stand for yourself. We all affect each other, for better or for worse. If I leave a mark on this world, which we all do, I want it to be a positive one.

To give you an example of how smart college makes you I will tell you a little about an Art Appreciation class I took. My professor in that class said “Uh” 177 times in less then an hour (I was bored a lot in class). We had a quiz every day, but he said we could throw away our lowest quiz grade at the end of the term. We had to read like 60 pages a day for this stupid class that I couldn’t have cared less about. The first day I went home and read about 30 pages. At the point where I was actually considering suicide from the absolute boringness of this stupid book I just decided that this would be the quiz that I threw out and after today I would read. Well, I got an “A” on my quiz so I didn’t read the next day either. Every day I got an “A” and every day I didn’t read until the term finally ended and I got an “A” in the class. What a joke! I never wrote on the board how many times that guy said “Uh” though. I learned my lesson. It was distracting, however. It was way beyond anything you have ever heard anyone else say, I promise!

I had good classes too. I had a Biblical Literature professor who challenged me a lot. He started off by saying that he was the hardest Bib/Lit professor there. We all sighed a little inside. Then he said “I will challenge you and you will work hard, but I will remember every one of your names and you will remember mine, and the stuff you learn in my class will stay with you for the rest of your life.” He was a man of his word. He remembered all of our names. He videotaped us all saying our names the first day of class and watched it at home. He really seemed to care. To this day I still remember his name. And, just like he said, the stuff I learned in that class has stuck with me for the rest of my life. We had to read the entire Bible for that class. Normally, I had no problem doing less then what I was told as long as I still passed, but not in this class. I was there to learn the Bible, so I did everything he said. I read the whole Bible again, I wrote long papers, I studied, and I memorized all the books of the Bible and their content and their history. I learned “why” to a lot of questions that most people have. I am so grateful that he pushed us. Thank you, George.

As you can probably tell college wasn’t quite as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact I thought it was pretty easy really. At the beginning of each term they gave you a syllabus that told you exactly what you would have to do all term. You knew from day one when you had papers to write or projects to finish. It made it pretty easy for me. Once I got in the groove for each class and felt out what kind of professor I had to please, I would just start chipping away little by little at the projects and papers. I would be done weeks before they were ever expected. Everyone else would wait until the last minute and then act surprised like the professor just made it up to throw them off or something. I learned to use small blocks of time wisely. In one of my classes they told us to write down everything we did in a week.

Everyone said they had no time to study. We all had to sleep, we all had classes and some of us had jobs, extra curricular activities, and recreation which seemingly added up to no time at all to study. But even with a full schedule we all had lots of free hours of doing absolutely nothing. In between classes we would just waste time. People acted like they needed to have 6 hours to study all in a row. They told us that if you study in smaller blocks of time that you retain more of the information, you aren’t as fatigued, and you get done a lot more than you ever thought you could. So, I applied that theory to my life. They were right! If I had 30 minutes in between classes I would do part of an assignment or read a chapter or something. I found that I always had lots of free time. I seemed to study a lot less than everyone else. And I got the highest GPA in my class and department. I got a 3.97! All “A’s” and one A- in a one credit class that was based on a one page paper. Not bad for a loser dropout, huh?
Since I still didn’t have a driver’s license or a car I had to work on campus...doing food service.

Wowsers! I made $4.25 an hour, which was a slap in the face after making $8 an hour at the sawmill. I didn’t let that stop me. I was a machine at work! I picked up every shift I could. I got an award for “Sub of the Year” at my job. I washed dishes, cooked, cleaned, did banquets, folded napkins, served thankless people, took out the trash, mopped, and so on. I learned a lot. The Bible says the greatest among you shall be the servant of all. This can be taken three ways; 1) you could say ha, my boss will be the servant one day or 2) you could say that the guy doing the menial tasks is the greatest among us or 3) you could say that the guy who is the greatest among us already knows his place so he has nothing to prove to anyone. He is ok doing little things because he already knows he is something great.

I think that is what Jesus meant. You see he is God. He is the greatest among us, but he washed the disciples feet. This was considered the lowest person’s job. Either way, it was a little humbling. I was happy to do it. I did my job as unto the Lord. I learned a lot. I made enough money to get me most of the way through the year. The last term I had to borrow $1,000 from my grandfather who later told me not to bother paying him back. I was very grateful for that.

Then there were all the fun parts of college! Because I studied in between classes and work, I always had a lot of free time when it came time to have fun. Plus, I didn’t have to feel guilty that I was falling behind. One of the things we would do all the time is go out to a place called jump creek. It was a drive, but it was so fun! There was this creek that ran through a canyon. There were cliffs and waterfalls and valleys and caves. It was great! We would go rock climbing. We swam in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. We would explore all over the place. While we were out there we could forget about school and life for a little while and just let loose. We risked our lives several times. In case you are wondering, you never really live until you risk your life... at least a little. Personally, I like to push the limits!

We would talk while we were on the trails about all kinds of deep things. There is nothing more breathtaking for me than being in high places. I love it! When it got dark, we would build a fire and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. We would bring out the acoustic guitars and sing and play and laugh. I loved that place. Some people would drink. I wouldn’t. We went every chance we got. I wish I had gone more. Some idiot tattletale told one of the RA’s that some of the people were drinking out there. So, one night they set up a “sting” and tried to get us all in trouble for going out there. The nerve of some people! What a bunch of nerds! “People are having fun, let’s go stop it. Quick!” I hate people like that. Lighten up.

One day some military group had repelling off of our 7-story science building for free! We were all there. What a rush! You have to back up off a building while you are seventy feet off the ground and trust the rope and the guy holding it. I went as many times as I could. I hate the military, but I love heights!

We also used to go “ice-blocking”. This guy had a huge house at the top of this giant grassy hill. We would go to the grocery store and buy a block of ice each for a dollar. We would climb to the top of the hill, put a folded towel on the ice block, sit on it, cross our feet, lean back, and fly down this grassy hill. It sounds gay, but it was so fun! You would wreck sometimes, but it didn’t hurt that bad. Once you got to the bottom, you had to hike all the way back up. We did that a lot too. It’s amazing how much fun you can have for a dollar.

Then there was this old prison that had been turned into some kind of tourist site. They had it all locked up at night, but that was no challenge. We climbed under the steel bars and snuck in all the time. We wouldn’t mess anything up. We would just have fun. We played flashlight tag and sardines and stuff. We would look around and try to think of ways to scare each other. It was only a small group of us that went, so we went all the time. Somehow, word leaked out that we were having all this fun and then everyone else wanted to come too. Bad idea! One night we showed up and there were about twenty people there. Two of them couldn’t climb under the bars because they were too fat. So, we got a hose and climbed the 15-foot high wall and lowered it down the other side. They couldn’t even climb, so we had to help them with that too.

Once everyone was in and we had been in for about half an hour, some idiot set off an alarm. It was loud and we knew cops were coming. Everyone scrambled to get out under the bars. Then we remembered the fat guys. We helped our friend out. It wasn’t easy, but we got him over the wall and he got out. The other one started climbing after him. He broke the hose! We kept trying until it sounded like the cop cars were right around the corner. We figured it was better for one guy to get caught than for all of us to get caught. So, we all ran and left him there.

He showed up really late that night. He had black eyes and was all bruised. The cops didn’t get him. I guess one of his friends stuck around and jumped on his chest until he finally got under the bars. Man, I felt bad, but you have to admit that is pretty funny. I wish I could have seen it. That must have looked so silly. Needless to say we didn’t go back to the old prison any more after that.

We would also do lots of stuff with water balloons and shaving cream balloons. The Gillette foamy shaving cream works the best. If you fill the balloon with shaving cream and tie it off and then throw it at someone or something it pops and then the shaving cream kind of just freezes in place. It looks really funny. We would throw those at people and windows and stuff. You could also fill a manila envelope with shaving cream and slip half of it under someone’s door. Then you stomp on it and the shaving cream goes all over their room. It is a nice surprise when they get home.

We all shared the same bathroom on our wing. It had open showers. Which is, you know gay, but whatever. So, we played pranks on people in the shower all the time. We would listen at the door to see when the water turned off and then run in and throw kool-aid powder or hot chocolate powder on our victim while they were all wet. It is such a pain to get off!

One day I was taking a shower and I got out and noticed that they had taken my towel while I was in the shower. I was like “Ha, ha, you got me.” So I just walked out of the bathroom and walked down the hall to my room. I was naked and sopping wet. My door was at the end of the hall on the right. They had put the towel on my doorknob. I walked down to my room and when I was almost there I heard someone scream “NOW!” All of the sudden they opened up the door to the lobby, which was right on the other side of my room. It was hilarious! I should have been mad I guess, but I just thought it was funny and well done. I always love a good prank, even if I am the butt of the joke.

One day we went to a drive-through fast food place with a bunch of water balloons. We ordered four waters. We all got out of the car except the driver. He drove around to the window and we hid on the far side of the car. As soon as they opened the window we all stood up and pelted them with water balloons. Mean, in retrospect, I’ll admit. Sometimes we took it too far.

Derek carded this guy’s room and urinated in his mouthwash. I didn’t know about that one for two months. They were laughing about it one day because he had been using it this whole time and didn’t notice. I went to the guy’s room and opened his mouthwash to smell it as soon as I found out. I said, “Does this smell funny to you?” He smelled it and said “No, like what”. So, I told him to pour it out and then I told him why. That was just nasty! You shouldn’t do that to people.

Another time we carded two guy’s rooms and put the urinal deodorant cakes in their sinks. I thought it was a little gross, but still harmless. One of the guys, Brett, the cool one, laughed and put it back in the bathroom. The other guy freaked out! He threw a fit! It was unbelievable. What a little girl. So, nobody said who did it. A bunch of us were in our room and my roommate says, “Boy am I glad they don’t know we did it. We would probably get in trouble now, huh?” This guy from Wyoming, named Tex, told on us. We all got punished and paid fines. Tex instantly became an outcast and had lots of shaving cream under his door. In fact, he was the butt of all pranks for the rest of the year. Nobody likes a narc. You don’t betray your friends, especially over something so petty. End of story.

The hall below us had a game they played called “Power Dump”. They would straddle the top of the bathroom stall and crap from up there into the toilet while the rest of the guys on the wing watched. They got points for height of splash, size, and accuracy of aim. I didn’t hang out with those guys. That seemed way too gay for me. Why in the world would you want to watch someone take a crap? That is just gross!

I had kept my hair short because I was trying to be a pastor. I always have preferred having long hair though. It’s just a preference. One day there was a concert. I got to feed the bands because I worked at the food court. I found out about the show and got there early to help load equipment. I got right up front when the concert started. Half way through the show the band said, “ Now it is time for audience participation.” They picked some girl out of the audience and then they picked me! We got up on stage and the lead singer looks at me and says, “Well, do something.” So I said “Do what?” He said “Anything.” so I was like “Anything?” and he said “Yeah, anything.” So I looked at him and said, “Let me see his guitar.” They were so stunned that they gave me the guitar.

I played around for a second and then started playing a song I had written called “Alone in the Dark”. The crowd started going crazy. I knew a lot of the people there. I was in a band and everyone knew that. So then the bass player and drummer of this famous band started playing along with ME. I was singing and playing and they were playing with me. The crowd was going nuts. I got to the third chorus and the singer put his hand on my back. He said, “Dude, my manager is mad at me because you are getting more attention then we are. Can you stop?” So, I did. It was so cool, though. There were thousands of people there. It was great! That night I realized that if I wanted to play in a band I would have to look a certain way to appeal to the people. They don’t just want anybody from the crowd on the stage. They want something different, something amazing. So, I started growing my hair out again that night.

Remember my friend Mike that was so confidant when we went to college; the one that took Calculus and Physics, and all that. He dropped out after one term with a 0.17 GPA. Amazing isn’t it? Lots of people dropped out. The class got smaller and smaller as the year went on. Then my turn came.
As the year came to a close I did the math for the next year’s finances. There was no way I could afford it at all, unless I lived off campus and ate my own food. Room and board was expensive there! I looked through the rule book for the school. I found out that if you had been out of high school for three years or more then you could live off campus. So, I went to my counselor and told him my concern. I told him that I wanted to preach with all my heart, but I couldn’t afford school unless they would let me live off campus. I would gladly sacrifice and eat Ramon noodles everyday if they would just let me. He refused.

So, I appealed. Everyone turned me down. I appealed right up to the president of the college. I finally told them “I have the highest GPA in my class and department. I am a good student. In fact, according to your numbers, I am the best. I have lived on my own for the last three years. Please, let me live off campus so I can still come here.” The guy looked at me smugly and said, “That rule wasn’t made for dropouts like you.” I told him they would lose me as a student if I had to live on campus. He shrugged carelessly and thanked me for my time. I was devastated!

Jesus said of the Pharisees that they strain at a gnat, yet they swallow the camel. In other words they are concerned with all the petty unimportant things, but they miss the point. They missed the point that day. What a terrible thing it is to break the will of an eager heart. I could have used that as an excuse to fall, but a long time before that I had resolved to never let someone else’s hypocrisy make me into a hypocrite. So, I decided to do home study. It was a lot cheaper and I could go at my own pace, which is fast!

I left NNC a better man than I came. I learned a lot. Not just book knowledge. I learned a lot about me! I learned that I could do anything I set my mind to. It was like I had been validated. A man needs to have some sense of dignity and self-respect. I had always thought of myself as a loser and a dropout. To this day I joke about being a loser and a dropout, but it is only a joke. I know that I am a success, and so does everyone around me. I don’t have to brag because it is painfully obvious to everyone I meet. It was worth the $10,000 I paid to have that. I had a blast! I got to be a kid again. It was a lot of fun.

I drove back to Republic, Washington with my head held a little higher. I got a job at the sawmill again. I moved in with a friend of mine named Jeff. He went to my church and he played guitar also and he worked at the sawmill together. We had a lot of fun.

Previous Chapter (5) Next Chapter (7)