Nostalgia

Just recently, during a trip back home to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I found myself wandering the halls of the John J. MacInnes Student Ice Arena, a place where I spent many hours of my college days at MTU working as an all-purpose janitorial engineer and laborer extraordinaire.

The air was brisk, just as I remembered, and a smell that I can only describe as “Eau de ice-arena” still hung lazily in the air. However, a lot had changed. The seats had been replaced, with the new versions mercifully sporting the Husky team colors of black and yellow, instead of the orange, yellow, and green disasters that had been there prior. Skyboxes and a gigantic scoreboard had also been added, and new signage and memorabilia displays helped to enhance the fan experience.

In short, it was a far cry from the days when I’d roamed the halls with a mop and a bottle of Bath Mate.

During my tenure as an employee at MTU – where my jurisdiction also included the rest of the Student Development Complex – it could never be said that we didn’t have fun. Just off the top of my head, I can distinctly remember the following:

• Being a co-founder and vice president of the now-defunct SDC Student Union.
• Playing Husky Trivia Challenge in the parking lot during hockey games, where fans were given the opportunity to have their two-dollar parking fee waived if they answered a trivia question of our choice correctly. (As I recall, nobody ever won, because even if the question was answered successfully, we’d still tell them they were wrong.)
• Toilet paper roll fights.
• Planting scrawled messages in the press box on crumpled-up pieces of paper that begin with the line, “If you’re reading this, then I’m already dead.”
• Putting a manila folder stuffed with McDonald’s French fries into a file cabinet in the office area – labeled “McDonald’s Fries” of course – just to see what the reaction would be.

I could go on for pages, but to be honest, I’d rather not. In fact, reminiscing about the SDC is something I rarely indulge in anymore, as somewhere along the line I made the conscious decision to try and not become the sad-looking guy who spends too much of his time romanticizing the past. In general, I consider nostalgia to be sort of like junk food. Everything in moderation, because too much can be bad for you.

However, as I stood in the ice arena a few short weeks ago, thinking about the times when I’d helped to paint the Winter Carnival logo onto the ice, I began to see it in a different way. Nostalgia doesn’t just have to be about reliving your so-called glory days. Instead, it can be used as a way to measure just how far you’ve come.

For example, the person I was back then and the person I am now are remarkably different. The college version of me tried a little too hard to be noticed, and he was a bit on the loud and annoying side. He’d also never really traveled, and he’d never been away from home long enough to truly appreciate family. In addition, he knew absolutely nothing about nutrition, as evidenced by the mind-boggling amount of Mountain Dew he somehow managed to consume without having all of his internal organs shut down in protest.

Not that everything about me has changed, mind you. I’m still infused with the same vein of silliness that’s been my constant companion throughout life –and which I hope to never lose – and I’m still constantly bombarded by the urge to come up with the perfect one-liner. On the downside, I still experience the same bouts of incredible shyness around girls, and I still worry a little too much about what others think of me. In short, it’s a mixed bag, but one that I’ll gladly accept.

Looking back at the college version of me, I can also see glimpses of who I’d eventually become. At the time, I’d never really considered doing any sort of writing, much less sharing it with the public, but it was during my tenure at the SDC that I penned an issue of the Student Union’s newsletter, The Cleanest Urinal. Looking back at it now, it was truly terrible, but it was still the first step – as shaky as it was – towards what I now consider to be my favorite hobby.

And then there’s the whole career thing. Back then I was spending several hours a day in the computer lab writing programs and trying not to inhale – as the body odor in that place was terrible – while making exactly zero dollars per hour. Now, however, I’m getting paid to do the same thing, plus the B.O. is gone! (My theory is that all of my deodorant-deficient peers eventually went on to work for the government, in which case, assuming one of them reads this, I’m definitely getting audited in the near future.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that no matter the allure of the past, do your best to be happy with where you’re at now. It may not be your glory days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, you may be surprised at just how far you’ve come.

However, you also shouldn’t be afraid to indulge in a little nostalgia now and then, as it can be fun in small doses. In fact, I could probably be persuaded after several Mountain Dews to recall a few good SDC stories, such as the time we unknowingly tried to charge the priest two dollars when he pulled into Saint Al’s parking lot to administer a service to his flock.