Alcohol. Parties. Roommates. Parties. Outings. Parties.

Like many, I’m sure, I thought a large part of the college social experience was dorms, sororities and frat parties. At the age of 11-12 as a 6th grader in Northridge, I fantasized about attending UC Berkeley. I abhorred the idea of attending CSUN (CSU, Northridge). It was the local college I would often see as I rode in the car with my parents; it was too familiar and held no interest for me. I wanted to be part of a big campus and mingle with the popular crowd that always seemed to exist in movies involving college life. I don’t know a soul who aspired to attend a community college or, even, a CSU, unless it was something like SDSU or Cal Poly.

When I got to my first of many community colleges, I came to find out that it really wasn’t any different than being in high school – most students I saw already had their friend groups and, generally, weren’t that interested in interacting unless forced to, at least in the prereqs like English 101 or Psychology 101 or blah blah blah 101. Being an introvert and having a lot of social anxiety, I didn’t find myself making any friends my first couple of years. It was a lonely existence and, frankly, more difficult to get through since I didn’t have a support network upon which to rely (this was also pre-cell phones, pre-Internet and, even, pre-pagers, for most). I had friends, but they weren’t going to my college so I didn’t have them to share the experience of being on that campus. And, really, when your friends and classmates are going to UCLA, UCSD, USC and so on and you’re attending Pierce community college, you can’t help but feel like a total loser, like you really couldn’t succeed in high school while everyone else could and did and were handsomely rewarded with entry into great schools. I didn’t have anyone around to tell me that, years down the road, it’s often how you finish, what you make of your experience and how you interact with society that are really going to matter in the working world. Seriously, I witnessed a Yale medical school graduate get rejected for a lucrative position in a private practice where I worked because, for one, his peers really didn’t like him (he was already working as a contractor for the practice; he was vying for a position to become one of the partners).

Anyway, what I did learn later while still at Pierce was that departments that had core groups of students, like theatre, ASL, music, etc., were where I would find faces that would repeat themselves in my classes in those departments so I finally got to know other students. It was nice – not being so lonely anymore, getting to know other students, making friends, flirting, even dating (although there were more than one creepy guy/stalker experiences along the way). The best place I found for making friends was in the theatre department as working on the productions meant spending a ton of time with a set group of individuals. The ASL department was also a good place to get to know other students, but while I got to know other students and even carpooled with a few to some ASL events, I never did get to be friends with any of them.

Yeah, I’m not sure if my love of theatre first grew out of an actual interest in theatre or finding out that theatre productions meant cast parties…lots of them. In addition to the cast parties were weekly Thursday night outings to a local bar (okay, so it was Red Robin after 10pm when it was more a bar atmosphere than restaurant). The bar outings didn’t really thrill me (I came to find out that hanging out at bars I find utterly boring). I really enjoyed going to the cast parties. These were great opportunities to socialize with other students my age (mostly) and drink alcohol. A LOT of alcohol. I know – okay, I THINK – the point wasn’t necessarily to drink alcohol but, well, I remember many of us consumed quite a bit of alcohol. My new friends introduced me to the “glory” of cheap booze in the name of Boone’s Hill Farm ($1.99!); I suppose it was the Two-Buck-Chuck of our generation. We were young and mostly broke so cheap booze (and lots of it, if/when possible) was the name of the game. We were also theatre students so being silly while drunk also played a part (as I recall, one situation was immortalized in the play of a now-famous comic book artist/then-unknown fellow theatre student when he incorporated a scene of a bunch of drunken partygoers in a circle singing “Hey, Jude”; what can I say – it seemed like a good idea at the time!).

It wasn’t always about drinking, the socializing. Out of this, we became a loose group of smaller tightknit groups who would go on to visit amusement parks together (Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios, Magic Mountain), attend plays together, work on outside productions together, see movies together and even spend holidays together. A few dating couples grew out of these groups; a few marriages materialized from these dating couples. Even after the school semester was over for the summer, many of us continued to socialize during the summer. This wasn’t even limited to students (during the period when the riots broke out after the Rodney King verdicts and we had to cancel a few of our performances due to curfew, our director invited us to her house for a potluck barbeque; when a couple of the professors retired, several of us, their former students, were invited to attend the joint retirement party for them).

At one point, I did end up housemates with a few of my fellow theatre classmates. It wasn’t the most ideal situation as I, stupidly, thought it would be more convenient to live in a party house so I wouldn’t have to leave home to socialize (I was pretty busy and really didn’t want to have to step out of my house to socialize). What I learned was if you live in a party house, then you really live in a party house, THE party house. Remember, we were still (fairly) young college students, my housemates and I, who were all living on our own for the first time. Having a house available for parties was a rarity (since many students still lived with their parents as Pierce, like many community colleges, does not have dorms) so that meant our house was a hotspot for parties and merriment in general. Still, despite the constant parade of guests in our house, it was an amusing and enlightening experience. I wouldn’t want to do it ever again, but I’m glad to have done it once (and, fortunately, it only lasted a few months).

As many these days are, several of my former theatre classmates and friends and a few of my former theatre instructors are my Facebook friends. A few months ago, one of them commented that that period of time when we were all there was a magical, special period full of fond memories. I’d have to agree. While it wasn’t all perfect, I loved it. I miss it. It was so much more than the college experiences I thought I’d have when I was a child dreaming about my future social experiences. It was a haven of learning combined with support, love, creativity, fun and excitement I will always treasure.

Next week – Part V: All the work, not the time.

LNR