Old Main ASU

Going back to repeat a halcyon experience is like biting into a Mars Bar after you’ve gotten used to Fran’s salted caramels—best revisited in memory only.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” a friend asked.

I thought for a moment. “I am a grown up,” I said. “I worked hard to get here and I am who I want to be.”

That’s not entirely true. While I don’t want to go back for a redo, I do want to move forward, always learning, growing and changing.

Before the start of the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference, my tribe dropped me off at Arizona State University in Tempe and we walked around the Historic District.

“Wouldn’t you love to be back at university?” my sis asked me, as we mingled with the students.

Not really. I love being on campus as a student, but I don’t want to be eighteen again. Some of us who flooded the universities in the nineteen sixties are now tying up careers and picking at the knot of free time. We’re healthy. We’re creative. We’re back on campus.

When I was a young student at U.C. Berkeley, would I have wanted my parents sitting in the classroom with me? No! But times have changed. Student populations are multi-everything, including age. There are over 70,000 students at ASU, thirty percent of them over the age of 25. I love being part of this crowd.

So, go on. Visit a college or university near you and see what they have to offer.