The Sunday Memory Drawer - Freshman Orientation

It's that special time of year. You've shuffled off your kid to college, perhaps for the first time. You worry about losing touch and knowing just what the youngster is going to be doing on those long campus weekends. Of course, in these tech happy days, everybody is equipped with cell phones and both parents and children probably check in with each other on an hourly basis with Facebook and Tweeter.

"Dad, I just tied the sneaker on my right foot."

"Okay, let us know when you leave the dorm and start walking down the hall."

"Mom, they're serving asparagus for dinner in the cafeteria. I don't eat that."

Overkill.

It wasn't long ago when it was a harrowing process for me. Freshman Orientation. Or, in my case,...

Disorientation.

I had wandered around Mount Vernon High School for several years, fatally shy, quiet beyond imagination, and self conscious about every blackhead and every closed pore. Now I was going to make matters worse. I was going to start attending college. In the Bronx, to boot, and that was scary in itself. I had made about six friends in high school and now I was facing another four years where I might be hard pressed to make six more.

Kids today get the cushiest entrance into higher education. Most visit multiple colleges to find the right fit. Weekends of subliminal marketing where every element of campus life is carefully tested and analyzed.

As for me, I applied to Fordham University and got accepted. Period. End of sentence. Did I ever set foot on the campus prior to my first day there? Nah. That would have been too easy. The closest I came to any pre-screening was my father showing me the different bus and train routes to school. That was it.

So, the dislocation and lack of advance preparation made my Freshman Orientation on the Rose Hill campus an even more frightening prospect. I sort of looked up the courses I wanted to register for, but even that was a crap shoot. I knew that I was going to major in communications, but I had no clue on what else I needed to sign up for, curriculum-wise. To make matters worse, this former public school student was suddenly faced with having to take five different theology classes over the course of four years. This was not only upsetting to me, but my grandmother.

"You're going to come home a Catholic."

With all the other trauma I was going through, I had Grandma's proverbial cross to bear as well. Upholding the Protestant standard while taking classes taught by Jesuit priests. I began to wonder if Fordham University had a trap door that I could use. Immediately. It would have made things so much simpler, especially since I was invariably on the wrong line at registration.

"No, you want the L line."

"Who sent you here? You belong on the Q-R line."

"Nope, sorry, you should be over there!"

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I had a friend from high school who was also entering Fordham at the same time. At least, my misery had company. The only problem was that my buddy fancied himself as the second coming of sports announcer Marv Albert, as if the first coming wasn't enough. His sole purpose in coming to Fordham was to work at WFUV. If a class or two got in the way, so be it. But, for at least this day, he was my one and only comfort zone, so his companionship for the time being was vital.

Naturally, there were others sprinkled about with the same WFUV aspirations. We met another guy on one of the multiple wrong lines at registration. This dude fancied himself as the second coming of disc jockey Don Imus, as if the first coming wasn't enough. Well, Marv and Don hit it off famously and sucked the air out of the entire campus. Trying to get in a word edgewise, I felt like I was living in a vacuum packed bag of green beans. High school angst was morphing into college angst and I felt smaller than Mickey Rooney praying at midnight mass.

These two great radio personalities of the future decided that they wanted to get a leg up on all the other talentless freshmen who wanted to work at WFUV. They decided to march up to the radio station and introduce themselves to the general manager. With no other recourse, I followed them. I was a male concubine who had his ankles tied together like a geisha. I had deep down hopes to work at the station myself, but my desires and my self esteem often took years to get on the same page. And they certainly weren't even in the same book on that day.

When we got up to the radio station, my chums looked at their potential meeting with the GM as if they were going to audition for Flo Ziegfeld. My high school pal noticed me standing next to them and was immediately perturbed.

"Stand behind us. You're going to make it look bad for us."

Suddenly, I was gum on the curb. A fly at your picnic. The dog shit in the grooves of your sneaker. If this was what college was going to be like, I wanted to take the civil service exam to be a postal worker ASAP.

But that singular sensation was the lowest point of my college career. Because, somehow, I ratcheted up enough self-confidence to forge my own way at WFUV. Doing the news. Interviewing TV stars. Running the public relations department in my senior year. Serving on the station's board of directors.

And creating my own show. A radio situation comedy which ran for three years.

I didn't know it on that horrible day. But, eventually, I wouldn't be standing behind anybody.

Dinner last night: Pork tenderloin and sauerkraut at the Rooftop Grill of the Hollywood Bowl.