Frosh Freedom Freakout
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Drinking (and to a lesser extent drug use) to excess is a legendary, mythologized aspect of college life. As the Whiffenpoofs song says, “Let us drink a toast to all we love the best”. I had my own encounter with this “self-hazing” cultural tradition when I went off to my first year of college after graduating from high school in 1972.
During my senior year of high school, I followed the conventional programmed path, applied and was accepted to two colleges – the University of Michigan in my hometown of Ann Arbor and Western Michigan University, 100 miles west in Kalamazoo. Since I was interested in theater at the time (see “JLO”) I decided to go to Western, because I heard that they had a better theater department. Since my mom was a single parent with a limited income (basically child support paid by my dad), I managed to get a financial need grant and a little bit of a scholarship as well, which paid for a large part of the cost. (more…)
