And then thinking I was projecting my own Freudian thoughts on an otherwise noble piece of statuary, and was that really so surprising given the night I had just had? and Church Street, and thinking it looked like a big phallus with a hunky soldier perched at the top. I remember my first sexual experience, an unsatisfying little romp I had with an upper classman in his apartment near the center of town, and looking out his window in the morning and seeing the huge obelisk of a monument to Civil War soldiers at the intersection of Bellefonte Ave. Because who had the buck-fifty to actually buy cigarettes then?
in the student lounge, watching old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies on the Late Late Show, and of sneaking cases of Old Milwaukee into the dorms in my backpack, and using a bent wire coat hanger to steal cigarettes from the vending machine in the lobby late at night when the front desk receptionist was off duty. I remember walking down West Water Street in town, the nicest street in Lock Haven, where millionaire lumber barons built their enormous homes in the 19 th Century, and dreaming that someday I might own one of those places myself, if I was successful enough. I remember suppressing the erotic thrill of drawing back the shower curtain in the men’s communal bathroom and seeing endless rows of nude athletes toweling themselves off and standing in front of mirrors with shaving cream on their faces. And mashed potatoes scooped out of huge stainless steel bins with ice cream scoops and dropped onto waffles and overlaid with chicken gravy. And peanut butter pie on long cookie sheets and hamburgers with molten cheese ladled on top by the ancient cafeteria workers. I remember the way cold slush seeped into my sneakers on rainy winter days as I tramped my way to classes every morning, and the taste of menthol cigarettes and bad coffee at Bentley cafeteria. I remember how young college boys looked when they doffed their t-shirts and tossed Frisbees back and forth on the grassy lawns behind the dorms. I remember how the sun reflected blindingly on the Susquehanna River on bright spring days.
And, surprisingly enough, I actually do remember a lot about those years, despite all those beer parties and stoner nights.