It seems appropriate, considering the traditional perspective of the current season. And yet, it’s an odd feeling to stand at the place where the end of life finds itself so intimately entwined with the beginnings of a new year.

Confluence and conflict: the meat and music of all that is.

I remember showing up for my college classes in my urban combat fatigues, military issue jump boots, black tank top, and cycle jacket that was more pins than leather. I was never actually in the military, but I worked at a surplus store that gave me access to all the gear my meager but steady income could provide. The two most obvious things about myself back then were that my hair was big…and my ego was even bigger.

I’ d enrolled at the University as an English major, and despite looking like a roadie for some bush league hair metal band, I took my education very seriously. I was entering my late twenties, and often years older than a sizeable portion of the other students in my classes. Another thing that apparently separated me from most of the crowd was that I actually wanted to be there. Given the way I looked, and the way I either despised or ignored most of the world around me at the time, this usually surprised the hell out of my teachers.

There was this one professor to whom I took an almost immediate dislike – perhaps because our personalities were so similar, and we both had our own ideas about who was in charge.

I camped out squarely in the front of the class and hit him with as much attitude I could muster. I tested his knowledge repeatedly with questions about the material, and never held back on offering my own insights, which I obviously valued way more than his.

One day after class I was walking down the hall when somebody grabbed me from behind, spun me around, and backed me into a locker. It was the professor, whom I assumed had finally had enough of my shit. He put his finger up to my face, leaned in close, and smiled. 

“Don’t ever fuckin’ change, man,” he said. And then he winked and continued down the hall. 

From that day on I took every one of his courses that I could, and I frequently caught up with him afterwards in one of the English Department offices to chat. There was still a lot of verbal tennis, but our volleys were directed towards, and not at each other.

For all the impact that hallway encounter had upon me then, it’s unlikely that we’d even recognize each other now, given the thirty-five years or so that have passed since the last time I saw him. And perhaps due to some still deeply residing need to challenge his authority, there have also been a lot of changes along the way…