My head lay on a pillow a block away from where I lived most of my college career. I woke up, looked out the hotel window at The Strip, the stretch of Cumberland Avenue where most of the bars were back when I was in school at The University of Tennessee. A few people sleepily walked down the street and sat in the McDonald’s drive-thru. Today The Strip is more about chain restaurants and small stores than bars. Heck, even the Krystal, the restaurant that kept me alive for a week my sophomore year when I ran out of money, is now a Verizon store. Even the bar where I played harmonica is now the site of a Panera Bread Company. High-rise apartments loom in places where my friends lived in worn-out houses. Old buildings have been torn down and replaced by shiny new ones. But the campus is still similar enough to my memories that every synapse in my brain fired on overdrive as looked around. I felt like my Dad when he’d walk the campus when I was in school.
“That wasn’t there and that wasn’t there and that wasn’t there.”
I closed the curtains, put on my shoes and walked UT’s campus at sunrise. As I climbed The Hill, maintenance staff busily manicured the immaculate landscaping. What had once been a concrete and brick jungle now bloomed with a variety of plants and trees. The campus is gorgeous. Millions have been poured into landscaping and new buildings. Neyland Stadium, which looked like an erector set when I was in school, now has enough brick to make code in Madison. I walked past the buildings were I had my classes. They came back to me, too — the successes I had and the near-failures (Accounting II). The sun peeked over the skyline of Knoxville and gleamed off the Sunsphere. I remember thinking it was really cool when it was built for the 1982 World’s Fair. Two years before that, Dad took my to my first UT game. I proclaimed to him that I’d go to school here that day. I did six years later.
On this trip, I had met Peyton Manning, several coaches and many of the football players I had once idolized. I saw my work proudly displayed on the wall of a fantastic new hotel (The Graduate Knoxville) and had total strangers tell me how much they loved it. I saw an old Beacon rack earlier in the day and smiled — Here I was so close to there it all began. As a bonus, I had seen my friend and mentor Charlie Daniel and my aunt Shug on this brief trip. I wish I could have stayed a few more days and visited with more friends but that will have to be next trip. When there is a next trip.
I walked past my old dorm room (in Greve Hall) and looked up at the window. It’s now someone’s office — it’s a good place for and office if you ask me. It was quiet when I lived there. Now that the dorm is an office building, it is even quieter. Memories flooded back. I felt 18 again. Age faded away off my bones. My knee even felt good as I hiked back to the hotel.
My heart was full.
I got my stuff, my car out of valet and then headed out of town. I drove to the split at Lenoir City and headed South on I-75. I passed all the familiar exits and there was even a Tennessee State Trooper hiding just where they’d hide back in 1990. But it wasn’t 1990 and I wasn’t headed to Atlanta.
At Chattanooga, I veered right instead of left. Atlanta is no longer home. I’m no longer 18 and my parents are no longer waiting for their son to come home. No, I headed towards Alabama and then Mississippi. That’s home now. Home is where Amy and the boys are.
I passed the exit to Atlanta and wiped my eyes. I thought about the passage of time and the 30 years that have flown past since I left UT. I am grateful there are good people taking care of my university — it’s in good hands. And I am grateful there are new students who will create their own memories.
As I was speaking to UT’s new chancellor on Wednesday, she said to me, “Thank you for loving UT.” I smiled and replied, “It loved me first.
