Fridays, I telework which means I often stream a Pandora station. Thanks to my brother, Thane, I have some new Jazz stations to enjoy.
But today, I felt like pulling out an old CD binder to see what I could find inside.
Don’t you love the mystery of putting on an old, recorded CD and finding out what songs are on it?
I found one called ‘Frosh Mix.’ I made it at some point during my freshman year at BYU and you know how it is with music: listening to certain songs can take you right back to a certain moment in your life.
It was a very random mix filled with MP3s downloaded from Napster. Oh yes, back in the pre-record-label-suing days when you filled up your download queue with songs every morning and then went to class.
Shannon let me use her PC that she rented from BYU to download the music. So many songs. And then we probably got on AOL’s IM client and chatted with all of the people in our BYU ward. I was submersed in the college world, something that I didn’t really do again until my senior year. This didn’t help with any sort of reasonable sleeping schedule, but since it was BYU, many of the activities were either study groups or ward activities. The BYU college world.
A few memories that popped in the ol’ head while I was listening to this CD:
- Always keeping a gallon tub of vanilla ice cream in the freezer
- Seeing the convertible that some college girl managed to drive into the small canal down the hill from our dorms (she was okay, physically)
- Running up and down the bell tower stairs
- All night cleaning marathons prior to monthly inspections
- The Sunday afternoon fire in the dorm room next to ours—thank goodness for concrete walls keeping it from spreading
- Midnight visiting teaching, last day of the month
- The kissing wall
- One of the boys who got drunk (not sure why he wanted to go to BYU) and flopped down two stories of bushes (he was okay, physically)
- Everyone running outside to experience the first snowfall
- Sitting under the tree on the hill watching people walk home from class
- Sunday dinners with homemade rolls
- Saturday morning American history study sessions / debates
- Waiting in line at the testing center, for an hour or more
- The teeny tiny closet I somehow fit all of my clothes in
- A roommate who borrowed my car and somehow drove on the wrong side of the road (there was a median)
- I only remember going out to dinner with friends twice: once to the Pizza Factory and another time to Los Hermanos
- Getting in trouble with campus police for throwing snowballs
- Trips up the canyon for campfires
- Learning to juggle a golf ball with a golf club in my golf class
- Hitting myself in the face with nunchuks in my karate class
- Double cheeseburger with grilled onions from Scoreboard grill
- Sleeping in the back row of a Physics class
- Actually attending the Tuesday devotionals
- Dressing up as the Spice Girls for the ward Halloween party
Oh man, we were just SO CRAZY at BYU. Living on the edge~!
And I loved it, honestly and in all its quirkiness. Great roommates, great ward, tough classes and that year, some of my best grades during undergraduate studies.
What songs do you have that take you back to some great memories?
Sciolist in the City of Salt and Saints 
Hey wait, remember when we went to Brick Oven with the roomies and 242 for your birthday? And it was discovered that Clark was a man of many pens? Maybe there is a reason that night sticks out in my mind. Though I didn’t like Clark at the time. Not like THAT anyway. Maybe you don’t remember because there was no music involved 🙂
I don’t remember the kissing wall. . . but I do remember the ice cream. And sitting on the floor eating it by candlelight because the power was out. And scraping candle wax off the floor with the back of the spoon getting ready for the next cleaning check. Good times.
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Usually, I remember stuff. And in great detail. But sadly, I’m having a hard time remembering the Brick Oven dinner. I do remember you guys stuffing my face in the birthday cake that night. And I kind of remember something about having 242 be our birthday dinner group, thinking that was pretty cool. They were a great group of guys and come to find out, Clark was the real gem of them all. So glad you figured that out!
The kissing wall wasn’t all that great. Basically, Sophie put up a kissing picture on that tack strip in the hallway and we put up a piece of paper that you were supposed to sign and date or something if you got action. I don’t think it had a lot of entries on it.
I totally remembering having to scrap that wax off with a spoon. Oh, and do you remember taking turns trying to clean out that cupboard that had the rotten potatoes in it? That was the WORST smell and we all nearly puked. Yuck yuck yuck. We could write an entire novel filled with funny stories from that year. I know I’D buy it. 🙂
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