Thursday, December 18, 2025
Time: 3:16 PM
Song: I Guess Time
Just Makes Fools of Us All
Artist: Father John Misty
Mode of Consumption: Listening to Mixtape Challenge on Spotify with 1 song from
each year of the last quarter century.
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4en3xAIagTLEs5bu4gWIY2?si=04f319b143684361
This playlist started with the song “Yellow” by Coldplay, and my kneejerk reaction was that the person had misunderstood the prompt. Then I realized that, yes, “Yellow” would have been released in the year 2000.
My memory of that song is from a friend from college saying he didn’t like it. I don’t know why I remember that.
I graduated from high school in the spring of 2000, and since then, I went through four years of college, three different career changes, got married, built a house, and now I am closer to retirement than I am to those early college days in Grant Tower at NIU.
Grant Towers residents were almost entirely comprised of freshmen. I remember congregating in the common room on Floor 9 on the first weekend. There were at least twenty wide-eyed kids in that room, I think most of us were wondering what to do next. I don’t know if that feeling disappeared for four years. Isn’t that really the question during college. What are you going to do next?
The memory is a little yellow like an old polaroid. For instance, I can guess who was there, but I couldn’t say for sure. I don’t remember anything that was said. In fact, I don’t remember anything happening. There was no wild drinking. No romantic hookups, that I am aware of. I certainly didn’t make one. No brawls. I don’t think we played cards or told jokes. Maybe we went around and introduced ourselves, but that seems a bit organized for college kids.
I look back and think I went into college angry, and all these years later, I don’t remember why. That anger triggered my worst behavior, mostly instantaneously and irrevocably finding reasons to dismiss people. I scanned that room that night, listened to people talking, and quickly crossed them off in my mind.
A few of them made that decision easy by dropping out. One I think left by early the next week. I just remember her by the moniker of “Crying Linda” because all she did while there was cry and I am pretty sure her name was Linda. If someone showed me a photo with every resident from the ninth floor that year, the only way I could identify her is by eliminating the people I do remember. There’s no face in my memory to place with “Crying Linda.” Just the name.
Some of the people I
got to know better. We played intramural softball and Nintendo 64, we partied
on weekends, we walked to campus together, we ate dinner, and we talked about
things that probably weren’t important. Only a few I really got to know, and we
get a Christmas Card from one each year.
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