Miles Goes To College

The Saturday Baseball Mutants: Dave, The Amazing Bob, The (future) Green Miles and Bro

These are some of The Amazing Bob's reminisces from when his fabulous son, The Green Miles, went off to college.

It was 1995 when my son Miles started at Syracuse University, a bit north and midway between Albany and Rochester, New York. He had graduated from Brookline High School that spring and was eager to begin his life with people unconnected to the past.

I do remember when we first talked about choosing a college, I suggested someplace local -- Emerson, for example. He explained to me that he had lots of relatives who had never lived anywhere but where they were born, and he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to go someplace out of state, California perhaps. I reminded him that visits would require round trip plane fair, which we couldn’t afford. We left it there.

On my way to the subway after work, since I had to pass by the Boston Public Library, I stopped by sometimes to get info on scholarships, grants, loans, student aid, whatever. Miles and me would go through the stuff and make decisions.

We would also talk about college life.  I stumbled through a a talk about STDs and unwanted pregnancies. We talked school cafeterias being good places for food and conversations. I reminded him that he comes from a long line of drunks. We talked about the differences between high school and college, like class size, personal academic responsibility and so on.

And then, on the planned day, he left.

In the days after Miles went to the very distant Syracuse, my apartment, the city and my life seemed larger and emptier, especially since I’d been a single Dad. The comfort of my daily routines were disrupted like in school, when a girl you have a crush on gets promoted and assigned to a different school Or your best friend gets transferred to a base in East Nowhere. I knew he hadn’t abandoned me and I hadn’t thrown him out but the uncertainty about my future and his was dense and intense.

I probably held my breath from the time he left until his first call a couple of days later, when he told me he was at the other end of that distance. He had a room and a roomie and was surrounded by people as temporarily dislocated as him.
He assured me he was eating and enjoying his first big immersion in independence. I was so relieved, I completely neglected to warn him, scold him or advise him about anything. But he was there and well.

As time went on I noticed it was a relief doing laundry half as much as before and buying half as much food. It was a physical relief, not a financial one, since I sent him mad money as often as I could.

Now that I was an Inter-state Single Dad, I had more time and energy to court the vivacious Donna, go shopping, eat out or catch a movie once in awhile, or play in bed until I was wheezing, sweating and grateful for the randomly bestowed blessings of an indifferent universe.
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Bob Grant, love of my life and father to the equally amazing Miles