To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Books Sept. 10, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/09/10/lastyear2 The first day of the last year After poker, sex and forgetting, I face a room full of faces and suddenly remember. - - - - - - - - - - - - By David Alford Ninety-nine percent of what happens on the first day of a class is dependent on the mind-set I have going in. The ratio of preparation to action is ridiculous. All summer serves to make me ready, a fact that non-teachers never understand. Like brewing a really good sauce, the process cannot be rushed. The only way to walk in calm is to go through the cycle: The first month: Recovery from last year, involving chiropractic, massage, drinking, poker, sex and forgetting. The next six weeks: Simmering time, when only subliminal things happen beneath travel, reading, more drinking and more sex. The last two weeks: Slow onset of worry, thinking and planning, the demise of sex, notebooks filling up with scribbles. Last year of a long career and I'm finally ready. I get up about 8 a.m. for a 1:30 class and immediately swallow a Pepcid for indigestion. I debate what to wear; choose Levi's and black T-shirt, a statement. I can do whatever the hell I want. I check out my water filter paraphernalia from backpacking and bag it up. About 11, I take off from my ranch and drive the 25 miles down out of the mountains, across the Stanislaus River and up the other side to Columbia College, following a logging truck up the grade from Parrots Ferry Bridge while rehearsing my opening scenario. I'm feeling the usual mixture of nervousness and exhilaration. After parking in the faculty lot, I grab the huge pile of summer mail and head for my office, bumping into a staff person I've been turned on by for years. I get by her, wondering how I look, and dump the junk on my desk. Little over an hour to go. I go over the scenario again, check out the course outlines and begin deep breathing exercises. Shit. I remember a hand-out that needs to be run off, so I run down to the duplicating room, where I encounter a faculty guy with whom I share a mutual dislike. I smirk at him, and get the damned copies out of the machine. More breathing exercises, pacing, fumbling with the water filter gear. 1 o'clock. I start packing. 1:15. I grab the bags and start walking across campus toward Sequoia 11. I try to manufacture some emotion: This is my last year. Nothing comes. Two classes, back-to back: intro. to philosophy and old world culture. Philosophy is jammed into a tiny room, people are wall-to-wall and on the floor. "I'm famous," I think, and then remember that enrollment is up at the college. I walk in through the mob, unpack the attendance form and waiting list, set up my water filter gear, take a deep breath and look up at the throng. A smile from Barry, who loaned me his wonderful "Vince Guaraldi in Grace Cathedral" tape, and warm greetings from Vicki, who drenched me with her domestic grief last semester, and several others create a sense of reunion. I tell the waiting list people to hang on until Wednesday to see who drops. I feel hyped, charismatic, fascinating. Shit, man. There is no way this can go wrong. I don't say anything, just start pumping water from my cooking pot into my water bottle, using my old MSR three-stage water filter. I've done it several times before, I know what to do. The trick is to make sure they never realize that this is more for me than it is for them. I'm the one fighting nausea after all. "Imagine this pot is a gorgeous Sierra lake, like Buck or Huckleberry. No problem if the filters are clean, right? Water gets through. Now comes the lesson. What happens if the filters are clogged? Nothing gets through, right?" Silence and intense attention. Gotta make it light, though. Students can spot pretentiousness a mile away. "So, these filters are not clogged. " I unscrew the water bottle from the filter and sip some. "O.K., punch line time. Your mind is like this water pump. Filters clogged, nothing gets through. You could see this coming, huh? So, we start off philosophy talking about how our minds might be clogged, nothing gets through." A few groans but I can feel that I have their attention. "Somebody grab the chalk and record the class's ideas about some of the possible ways your mind might be clogged and prevent new ideas from getting in." A big guy in the front row gets up and takes the chalk. Usual list of mind clogs fills the board: religion, prejudice, ego, ignorance, racism and so on. The guy can't spell: We've got "prejuice," "consciesnness." I quell the undercurrent of ridicule by suggesting that anybody who feels he could handle the board better could take over the chalk. No takers. The hecklers shut up. "Conservatism" is up there, spelled correctly. I ask the donor for clarification. "Rush Limbaugh is the ultimate mind clog," a sandal-clad, Ho Chi Minh-bearded redhead veritably shouts, inducing general rustling and murmurs of assent. A guy in a fire-tech training uniform, Marine haircut, prominent muscles, shouts back, "Hey, you prejudiced against Rush, huh?" The rest are watching to see my reaction. Always the first test: How is the teacher going to handle the flack. I feel a smile coming on. Here we go. Summer is over. I look up at the clock, glance out the window where hot afternoon sun is bleaching the pine trees, flickeringly remember how the sun had felt on granite boulders in the high country, look back at Ho Chi Minh and over to the fireman, smiling more broadly. "Nobody has a monopoly on mind clogs," I say. General murmur of agreement. A polite girl in the front row hastens to disarm the moment, sweet benevolence blooming on her intensely focused face. She almost rises up out of her chair with saintly inspiration as she whispers something about "tolerance," "listening" and a lot of other good stuff, some of which I can't hear. God, I think, I love these people. What the hell. I don't care what anybody says on any of these topics. We're having fun. After giving the girl my blessing, bestowed like the pope gives dispensations to the faithful, I smile out at the room, distributing general benevolence on conservatives and radicals alike. How could any of them truly hate each other when I am loving them all so patently? Then just as quickly I realize my absurdity: We don't even know each other, for godsake. All of my emotions are truly fake, unless I am capable of more generic affection than I've ever demonstrated in my whole life. You fucking phony, I think. While they are still bubbling and boiling, I'm in an internal monologue about my own hypocrisy. I ring down the curtain on that bit of blarney and turn my attention back to the class. "So, what about ego? How does that work as a mind clog?" The fire tech guy is glaring at Ho Chi Minh, but isn't likely to burst forth again. Barry, the sweet guy in the back row. takes off on a serious commentary. And so on, for another hour. A couple of them drop by for handshakes, a hug, a breeze of conviviality, a few procedural questions, and I'm out of there. I walk around the building during the break between classes, steadying myself from dizziness. Tall, slowly bending pines surrounding the walkway contribute to my feeling of seasickness and disorder. By the time I reach the classroom door for the old world culture class, I have established some sort of equilibrium. Another group of students jams the room, four or five continuing from the previous class, knocking off two requirements in the same afternoon. Already I am massively tired. I cut to the chase without any games whatsoever, passing out the course outline, answering a couple of questions about requirements, explaining the central rubric for the course on the blackboard, reinforcing the reading assignment in "Epic of Gilgamesh," making a couple of wry comments and dismissing them. I sit down in one of the student chairs. Goddamn. The whole summer to get ready for this and I'm fucking worn out. I slowly drive back across the river and up into the mountains. And then I remember: I didn't eat any lunch! Of course! What the hell good does it do to have a class outline if my stomach is empty? I sit on my deck and stare out at the meadow, wondering at my own stupidity. What happened to "relaxed awareness?" O.K., I tell myself, I'm taking my own philosophy class. Maybe I'll learn something in my last year of teaching. salon.com | Sept. 10, 1999