2003-2004 - Freshman Year at University of Toledo

After high school I didn’t know what I wanted to go to college for, and since Lindsey still had a year left of high school anyways, I did what my parents wanted me to do and went to Lorain County Community College for a year. After Lindsey got accepted to UT I applied and also got accepted, at the time Toledo was pretty easy for just about anyone to get into. Granted my grades from college and high school weren’t bad, but I was not a 3.5 GPA student like she was.
In August of 2003 I packed what I could and loaded it into Mom and Dad’s mini-van with Mom, Dad, my sister Rachel and my friend Ben. Lindsey had already moved in to her dorm a week early because of a special program for certain business students. I was assigned to the Academic House at the University and my roommate was a guy named Sean whom I had never met before that first day. I remember pulling onto the campus that day and it being very busy with all of the new students and their families moving into all of the various dorms. After we parked, we were assisted by some older students that helped us move all of my junk up into my new 12’ x 10’ room that I got to share with my first roommate ever.

After getting all of my stuff sort of unpacked, Lindsey came over, still a little bit hung-over from the night before, and joined us for lunch in the student union. After lunch we took a quick tour of the campus and said our good-byes to my parents. I went back to my room to finish unpacking and Lindz and I would meet up later after all of the new student activities. This is where I made my first contact with Sean. Since we had only spoken through email and Instant Messenger I had no idea what to expect. He was a surfer looking guy from southwest Ohio and was very laid back and easy going. Little did I know at the time it was the weed that made him that way. Sean was a pretty good roommate, we got along great, and his only problem was he was a slob. We quickly determined that the best way to solve this problem was for each of us to keep our messes on our own sides of the room and there wouldn’t be any problems.

I think it was that night or maybe the 2nd night there that Lindsey took me out with some of her new friends she met in her business week. This was the first time that I my first beer. I know mom, you thought I would have lasted longer than a day, but I didn’t. Sorry. See I had never before had an interest to drink alcohol. Only a few of my friends in high school did, and it wasn’t very often at that. Also my dad’s side of the family has had their fair share of alcoholics and I was always told it was wrong. But now that I was at college I figured what the hell, I might as well try it! I remember the experience very well, Lindsey and the guys there were playing a card game called Kings and they were drinking Bud Light. I joined into the game and when it came time for me to take my first drink, I almost spit it back out, I jokingly asked if they had anything that tasted better and they said as a freshman I wasn’t going to get anything that was better than Bud Light. How true of a statement that was, because after we finished the game we all went to a huge house party at one of the fraternities off campus house. This is where I met the Beta’s for the first time. Over the year we went to a few more parties at their house, which was about one strong wind from collapsing in on itself. And in our 3rd year there, they got lost their fraternity charter and were disbanded, a few weeks later someone set that house on fire and it burned almost to the ground.

Dorm life was a totally new experience for me, but it is something I believe that everyone should go through at least once in their life. You get to meet all kinds of people from all over the place, and usually you will walk away with some pretty good stories to tell. For instance, we had a guy on our floor that had the same surfer look to him that Sean had but was way uglier. Everyone called him Smoke-Dog for some reason; I can only imagine it was because he smoked weed and cigarettes like it was going out of style. One night on the first weekend before classes even started, he got so drunk that when he came back to the dorm he opened the door to the garbage room instead of his dorm room and proceeded to climb into a trash can and pass out. He was found about an hour later by dorm security and the next day everyone on the floor had a meeting about not parting too hard just because we were at college now.

Sean was known for not looking the door to our dorm room when he came back at night and then leaving again. I woke up many times to Smoke-Dog tapping me and waking me up asking if I knew where Sean or his cigarettes were. It was terrifying. Later in the year, Smoke-Dog’s roommates were told by his mother that they could shave off his scraggly hair one night after he passed out because his hair was gross. So later that night, they followed her orders and shaved about half of Smoke-Dogs head after he passed out. I did not find out about this until the next morning when I went to take my shower and I saw another guy on the hall walking a teary eyed Smoke into the bathroom to finish the job. Once again later that afternoon we had another hall meeting about not shaving other people’s heads even though their own parents instructed them too.

That fall at UT was probably the hardest and emotionally draining 4 months of my life. Everything started off great, classes weren’t that hard, I had made casual acquaintances on my hall floor, and Lindsey and I were 90 miles away from our parents. After we both got settled into our routines, one of Lindsey’s roommates, Casey, invited Lindsey to join her at one of the sororities rush events. This is what got Lindsey involved with the Alpha Chi Omega chapter at UT. With her being involved in a sorority I figured it would be good for me to get involved with a fraternity and meet some other guys. I knew a little bit about the frats on campus because one of my childhood neighbors, Scott was in Kappa Delta Rho, and had showed me around a few times because he wanted me to join them. I decided along with Sean to rush Phi Kappa Psi, little did I know what I was in for.

The rush events were really cool, there was food, card games, video games and just hanging out with the other brothers. After rush week Sean and I along with about 8 other guys were asked to pledge Phi Psi. For the initiation to pledge we all had to wear shirts and ties and were huddled into a small room in the basement and had to wear our ties as blindfolds while the other brothers got the ceremony together on the first floor. This was not the first time we had to do this. After the ceremony they threw us a big party on the second floor, where there was a bunch of beer and it was a good time.

We had like 8 or 10 weeks of pledging before we could officially become members, and during this time we had to learn all about the fraternity, the brothers and do whatever they said. Most of it wasn’t that bad, we almost always had to do something embarrassing after we interviewed one of the brothers. I think the worst I had to do was clean a brother’s room and go ask a sorority for dish soap so I could wash a brother’s dishes. The worst parts came on Sunday’s when we had our chapter meeting and afterwards our pledge meeting. This always involved a test of some sort about the brothers and the fraternity’s history, and it never failed t hat one of us screwed something up. Because of this, we had to do all different kinds of exercises while they yelled at us. One time, later in the pledge process following the meeting we were immediately locked in the small room with our neck tie blindfolds and had to listen to some bible hour on the radio and could not move or speak to each other. Then after what seemed like an eternity, all of the brothers came downstairs into the basement and grabbed each of us one by one and pulled us out into the middle of them where they shoved a strobe light at us, and as we struggled to see what was going on around us proceeded to shout questions at us that each one of us messed up big time. After we all screwed up that test so bad, they locked us back in the tiny room with the bible hour radio channel for a little while longer.

Around this time we began preparing for Homecoming weekend and started assembling our float for the parade. At one of the parties for homecoming was the first time I was introduced to the Beer Bong. Before I was introduced to this hose with a funnel on it, I had only drunk beer out of a can or cup. Turns out I am pretty good at chugging beers from a beer bong. The actual day of Homecoming began the Friday night before for us pledges. We were supposed to stay up all night and go down and paint the school’s spirit rock with our frat’s colors. Unfortunately for us we stayed up all night to go down there and didn’t realize that ever other fraternity was trying to accomplish the same goal. When we got there, there was another fraternity camped out around the rock and would not let us paint over their colors. So we went back to our dorm rooms to try and catch some sleep before the day started. We had to be back at the frat house early in the morning to clean before the alumni arrived for the parade and football game. Dead tired we cleaned the house and soon thereafter started drinking with the other brothers before the parade. After lunch, the parade started and because the float was only so big, we pledges had to walk the entire parade route which was at least 2 miles. After almost dying from the parade we went back to the house to cookout and tailgate before the football game. Before going to the game I was asked by one of the brothers to chug this drink he had made that he called a Creamsicle, it was orange soda and vanilla vodka. That gave me a good buzz going to the game were I quickly lost it after running into Lindsey. I hadn’t seen her in a day or so because of the Greek activities and I wanted to hang out with her that night at a party, but because her sorority was paired with another frat for Homecoming she went to their party instead. I was super pissed off and ended up leaving the football game early and going back to my dorm.

A few weeks after Homecoming was her sororities date night, this is kind of like a formal party for the sisters and their dates. Their theme for the night was a costume party since it was being held the weekend of Halloween. Lindsey and I decided to go as Fred and Wilma Flintstone and since we weren’t old enough to drink at the event, we had one of her sisters buy us alcohol before the party. I was still pretty new to alcohol so I had her buy me a bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey; I think Lindsey got a bottle of Orange flavored rum. Since I was so inexperienced to drinking I started taking shot after shot of Jack, chasing it down with Coke, and before I realized it, I had drunk over half the bottle. I didn’t initially remember everything that happened next, but I have been told that on our walk over to her sorority house I walked into a few trees. After getting into the house I blacked out and woke up puking into a trash can surrounded by a 100 different people I didn’t know. Then out of nowhere my roommate Sean and a few of the Phi Psi brothers appeared and took me back to our house to pass out. Lindsey woke me up early that morning and I had no recollection of the last few hours. Keep in mind while this was all going on, I was wearing a Fred Flintstone costume. Lindsey got in big trouble from her sorority, my fraternity brothers laughed at me and I had a hangover for 2 days. I still to this day have a hard time drinking whiskey.

I think I stayed in the fraternity another week or so. At that point it was getting really emotionally difficult for me to stay in, and part of me is glad that I got out when I did. I was also a different person back then as well, I was a lot more shy and reserved than I am today and had a hard time letting loose, and speaking my mind in public. The tasks that we the brothers were having us do was getting more and more ridiculous and all the issues that Lindsey and I were having didn’t help. I remember one day I just walked out the frat house and back to my dorm and told myself “I quit”. Later that night one of the brothers who I was pretty tight with called me and I explained my situation to him and told him I was out and that I was sorry I had wasted there time.

A few years later I ran into a few of the brothers I actually liked at a bar one night and we got to talking about things back when I was in it. Apparently I came through at the worst time possible and that none of the other pledges ended up staying with the frat for longer than a semester. They also said that they really wished I had stayed with them and that I would have been good as a brother. I had a few drinks with them as we talked more and eventually parted ways. I still think about what would have happened if I would have stuck it out and stayed, but I know in my heart, that things would be totally different, and I know that Lindsey and I might not have made it past those first few years.

In the weeks following Halloween things started to go downhill for Lindsey and I. She came over one morning after her classes and said that she thought we should take a break from our relationship for a while because she needed to work some stuff out on her own for a while but that she would come back to me. This completely crushed me because the only real friend I had at UT was Lindsey and now she didn’t want me around. I immediately called my friend Ben and had him come and pick me up so I could get away for the weekend back in Amherst. This was very scary to me because that I always knew that Lindsey and I were supposed to be together and now we weren’t. It didn’t help matters that my friend Matt, who I knew from band in high school and had hung out with a few times that first semester, had told me about him and his high school girlfriend that took a break their first year at UT and never got back together.

I surprised my parents that day when I came home so unexpectedly but they were there to support me and keep me strong for the weekend. I don’t think I have ever been so sad in my life to this point. I remember telling myself that it would be best to not call or email her because talking to her would just make it hurt more than it already did, and if she didn’t come back like she said she would I could move on a little easier. I still ended up talking to her a few times a week for the time that we were apart, but it was still hard. Mom and Dad took me back to school that Sunday and I remember after they left feeling so alone. Even though I tried my hardest, I thought about not being with her, and all these different situations of what I did wrong or what she wanted ran through my head all day and night.

As Thanksgiving approached I was glad to go home and get away for a few days. This was also the weekend that I got my first tattoo. I had always wanted one but never knew what to get or were. So after the whole Lindsey situation I decided on getting the Chinese symbol for Hope on my right forearm. I chose Hope because of one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption. The quote is “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” I can’t remember why I chose my forearm for my first tattoo since it is a very noticeable location, but I think it was because I wanted to it to be different and not like everyone else. At the time, most guys got their first tattoos on the back of their necks or around their bicep.

After Thanksgiving break I headed back to school to prepare for finals and the end of the semester. I don’t remember exactly when Lindsey and I got back together, but it was sometime in early December. She called me up one night and wanted to come over to my dorm and talk. We talked about what we wanted from our relationship and how the college lifestyle would work around that and decided to continue where we left off before we split.

Finals were quickly approaching and so was a nice long Christmas break. I remember studying for my tests in our floor’s lounge and watching the snow start falling outside over the campus. I ended up having finals all the way through Friday of finals week, which meant that I would be one of the last students in the dorm before break. See, after you were finished with your finals you were free to leave for winter break. My roommate Sean had finals early in the week and so did Lindsey so they both were gone by Wednesday night of that week. It was weird having everything so quiet in the dorm, and I recall being quite bored trying to pass the time until Friday morning. My last test was for a really easy class so there wasn’t too much studying required. I got up that morning, took my test, and went back to the dorm to finish packing before Dad came to get me. As it started snowing on the drive back to Amherst, I remember feeling relieved that I had completed my first semester away from home.

The spring semester seemed to go a little smoother than the fall semester did. I still didn't know what I wanted to study, so I was still taking core classes. They were boring and I don't really remember much about them or even what I took. All I know is that I passed them and moved on to take other meaningleess classes. Socially, there was usually something to do, we would go out to eat, or just hangout around Lindsey's dorm trying to not get caught drinking by the Resident Advisors. We got busted once, while me and Maria(one of Lindz's roomates were playing a lame version flipcup. Not even being loud, or causing any kind of trouble, but the RA that was making their security rounds for the night heard something coming from the room and decided to investigate. We peeped throuh the peephole, and saw who it was and immediately hid the beer and tried to play it cool. Unfortunately the RA didn't believe us and searched the room, found the empty beer cans and half drank case of beer and wrote, Lindsey, Maria and I up. There really was no punishment, I had to talk to my dorms Graduate Assistant(they ran the individual dorms) and I just stuck to my original story that I was just visiting Lindsey and that the beer was from a party that their older roomate had a few nights before. Lindsey and Maria had to attend a dorm sponsered event and ended up getting free food and drinks, non-alcoholic of course.

Spring semester went by, as I said earlier, with less memorable events. I remember as the year was coming to an end, dreading having to clean up our room, and moving out. Sean and I were never the cleanest guys, and we had to move every single piece of furniture out into the hallway a few days before we could really tackle the task of cleaning the room. I remember after we got it all put back together, and still having 2 or 3 days left, praying that Sean didn't mess it up so we would have to re-clean it all again. I do remember that after our finals, we stuck around for another day or so to pack up and hangout one last time before we all moved out. That last night we were there was the series finale of Lindsey's favorite show Friends. So we had to watch the 2 hour special on the history of the show, and then the final episode, and of course, Lindsey cried when it ended. I didn't because even though it was a good show, it wasn't a life ending event and there were plenty of other things on TV. After the show ended, Lindsey's other roomate, Michelle, who we found out in those last few weeks was actually a distant cousin, had her boyfriend at the time go get us some beer for one last time. We drank it, woke up the next morning and my parents arrived with the family van and grandpa's truck to help move Lindsey and I out. We loaded everything up and drove away. Ready for summer and a few months away from all the drama of Toledo. Still looking forward to going back a little older and a little wiser from the experience.