Column: Thoughts from Dr. Joe: Filled with good feelings as younger daughter begins fall term at college
My grandfather Papa Puglia was a savant at fitting an entire grocery order into the smallest of bags. He would approach this formidable task as an artist would approach a blank canvas. Slowly and meticulously he would place the items into the bag. After the last was gently aligned, he’d marvel at his masterpiece. Papa passed this skill to my father, and my father passed it to me. Thus, when I viewed the monstrous duffels, suitcases and boxes that the girls and Kaitzer would transport to the University of Texas (UT) and the University of Illinois respectively, I said, “No sweat, G.I.”
After the last bag was placed into the bed of my truck, Kaitzer asked, “Is there room for Sabine’s chair?”
Since I still haven’t shaken that Bronx wise guy persona, I thought, “So, they don’t have chairs in Urbana Champaign?” But La Cañada has gentled me.
All that remained was to affix the cow skull to the truck’s grill. We would leave at dawn, a fitting time of departure for any road trip worthy of itself.
With the cab filled to the brim, the girls drove 26 hours with barely enough room to wiggle their toes.
My plan is to record a father’s thoughts of taking his daughters to college for each of the successive years of their tenure. Many La Cañada moms and dads commiserated, sharing how they felt when sending their children off to college. This time, my grip while holding their hands was less firm than when they first left; the children we raised had vanished. I wish I could’ve told them they were in the good old days before they left them.
UT Austin was our first stop. We unloaded the truck at Simone’s sorority house and carried the weight of an army up three flights of stairs. Kaitzer had an entire suitcase of supplies earmarked as move-in essentials: hammers, assorted screwdrivers, you name it.
As Kaitzer and the girls were wiping the already spotlessly clean walls, I was sitting amid the lawns of the beautiful Antebellum-like Southern mansion of Alpha Delta Pi (ADPi). On spotting me, Ms. Deb, the ADPi house mom, initially thought I looked like a vagabond trespassing the premises. She must have had Sister Audrey for philosophy. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Steve, the maintenance/security guy, ventured outside to shake me down. Moments later we were friends.
Steve gave me a tour of the property. Parts of the building, built in 1871, had windows of hand-blown glass. There was a carriage house for the horses that once pulled wagons and carriages. I had a good feeling about leaving Simone under the watchful eye of Ms. Deb and my new friend Steve.
“I’ll be back,” I said, and we headed off to Bed Bath & Beyond by way of Target, Walgreens and Express. Yet I thought of Tennyson, “It’s not to reason why …”
Simone’s metamorphosis was poignant. She was no longer a child but a young woman who was going to a town and school that defined her. Seeing unfolding events through different eyes tempered by a realistic understanding of who she was and where she came from was an epiphany. That’s the alchemy of leaving home — children will not only miss those they love, but also the person they are now at this time and place because they’ll never be that way again. Leaving is part of the romance of life; children are destined for adventure. Watching Simone assimilate into ADPi sorority life was a graphic representation of the rite of passage.
JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
