IN THE GROOVE

As my family and I approach our official relocation to Austin next week, it seems fitting to share the story of my first days as an Austin resident in August 1982.

It wasn’t my first time to the city; I’d been there many times before, most recently the month prior, for college orientation. It wasn’t even my first time to live there. My family lived there from 1966 to 1968 while my dad was in law school at UT.

But those times were different. Those times, I was either a tourist or just a kid. This time, I brought linens and an alarm clock with me. And all my cassettes. My mail would come to this address (707 Jester Center East, Austin, TX 78787). I was going to live there. The last time I had moved to another city was in 1971, when we moved from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to Duncan, Oklahoma.

So I was not only starting college, far from home. I was ending an 11-year run of residential stability reaching back to second grade.

I wasn’t so much nervous as excited. And I surely wasn’t expecting a negative experience. I had no reason to. I had kicked ass on m ACT, I had the financial support of my family, and the first UT home game was in less than a week. But it was all very, very, new.

My dad drove me down from Duncan with all my stuff, which I’m sure seemed like a lot at the time. I had no idea that, 20 years later, I would refer to that quantity of mass as “a medium-sized trip to the store” or a “quick run to the landfill.” Anyway, we got to the dorm in mid-afternoon, so that we could be assured of maximum heat and humidity.  We quickly realized it would be hours, if not days, before one of the three rolling carts the dorm generously provided the 1000-plus students moving into Jester that day would be available. So we decided to go manual. And by “we” I mean “Dad” decided that “Lee” could haul his possessions, one armful at a time, while he “stood guard.”

It gave me great comfort to know that my two bath towels and three rock band posters would not fall prey to roving bands of new wave music-loving criminals looking to dry off after a shower.

Speaking of new wave music, my first actual memory of my dorm – and my first dorm neighbor introduction – came when I stepped off the elevator and into the 7^th floor lobby for the first time. The moment the doors opened, our ears were blasted by the sound of The Go-Go’s “Vacation” album being played at a volume level I had never actually heard inside a residential structure.

To my great joy – and my dad’s great horror – the source of the broadcast was in the room next to mine. There, I made the acquaintance of a young man named David Esparza. He was from El Paso, which really put my dad in a bind because my dad is also from El Paso, which made him want to like this kid, but at the same time, this kid was actively, unapologetically, wrecking what remained of Dad’s hearing, which made him want to kill David Esparza with hammers.

Dad’s issues aside, I was captivated by David and his music and the noise and the whole atmosphere. As corny as it is to say it, the best word to describe it is “intoxicating.” The environment – my new home – was brimming with sound and energy and people, and I loved it.

The next day, I heard that one of the other dorms was hosting a free hamburger supper, so I got out my campus map to see where it was and how far away. After about 20 minutes of increasingly anxiety-filled study, I left my dorm, map in hand, in search of no-cost meat. Holding the map in front of me like the worst kind of tourist, I crossed the street from my dorm to another dorm, where I found the hamburger supper.

Too hungry and naïve to be embarrassed, I walked toward the picnic tables they’d set up. I was just about to go through the buffet line when I heard music. It was so odd. Not that there was music, but it was a song I was familiar with but yet could not remember where I’d heard it before. I looked up for the source of the music and saw it was coming from the third floor of the host dorm. One of the residents had wedged two speakers into his open window, filling the space entirely. I remember thinking it was such a “rebellious” and “college” thing to do.

But I still couldn’t place this song, even though I knew by heart. Which I know makes no sense. But what was happening was the musical equivalent of seeing someone whom you have only seen in one context, say, the clerk at your local 7-11, but instead of seeing him – as you do every day – in his vest standing behind the counter, you run into him in a club downtown, dressed to go out, hanging with friends, and drinking a beer. You know the face, but it’s in an entirely foreign context, so it takes a while to figure out who it is.

The song was “You Might Recall,” from the “Three Sides Live” album by Genesis. To my knowledge, it has never been played on the radio. There was no MTV video for it. And none of my high school friends owned the record. I had only heard the song – and I’d heard it hundreds of times – on my record player in my bedroom. It was and still is my favorite Genesis song. And now some random college student I’d never meet was blasting it out of his dorm room window. And the sensation was magical. I felt connected to everything. The guy in his dorm. The other people around me who were hearing it too. I was completely alone in that I knew no one around me, but I felt like I was surrounded by friends.

I don’t know if these two musical run-ins were random or inevitable experiences. Meaning, I don’t know they were unexpected events which impacted me in a real and unforeseeable kind of way, or if they were bound to happen just because of who I am and how I’m wired.

Either way, I’m glad they did. They are among my happiest and most vivid college memories. And I hope any kid going off on his own for the first time should be so lucky.

© 2014 Lee B. Weaver