Admiral Byrd and Party

As cold grips most of the northern part of the continent, I find myself thankful that I am in Connecticut where the lows have been above 0 and not in Minnesota where they have been well below--and that's without the windchill factor!

I spent my freshman year of college at Moorhead State University--now Minnesota State University-Moorhead--on the banks of the Red River. Some of my thoughts and impressions of that time are recorded in my journals. I have kept a journal off and on since I was 10. I did not write very often during my college years, although there are more entries from my freshman year than from the following three. However, even without those journal entries, I have a pretty good record of that first year of college. In the back of one of my file drawers is a worn manila envelope. In that envelope are not only letters from my parents that I saved, but the letters I wrote to my parents that Mom saved.

The envelopes, which Mom also saved, are as telling as the letters. The return address on a letter written in the midst of winter reads "Admiral Byrd and Party." While not the coldest place in Minnesota, winter along the banks of the Red River can be bitter. The winter of 1978-79 was particularly so, in part because the usual "January thaw" did not happen. I was ready to believe the local joke, "There are four seasons in Minnesota, Early Winter, Mid Winter, Late Winter, and Next Winter." Spring came, but the winter weather dragged on. At one point I swore that if it snowed one more time, I would be on the next plane to New York, final exams be damned. Fortunately, the German Club was on a trip to Minneapolis the April weekend when the last snowfall happened.

Seasonal Affective Disorder had not yet become something people thought about, but I was depressed that winter. It was not just the weather and the darkness. Moorhead State was a commuter school. Major social functions took place on Thursday nights. I lived in a dorm complex of approximately 500, and one Saturday morning at about 2 a.m. there was a fire in one of the utility closets--quickly extinguished, but we still had to evacuate the buildings. Of 500 residents, 10 came out of the building into the winter cold. Nor did I like the program in which I was enrolled.

When spring finally did come, flood control and sandbagging dominated the community's life. I've always wondered who in their right mind builds not one (Moorhead, MN), not two (Moorhead and Fargo, ND), not three (Moorhead, Fargo, and Grand Forks, ND), but FOUR (Moorhead, Fargo, Grand Forks and Winnipeg, Manitoba) major cities on the flood plain of the only river on the continent that flows NORTH!

And so, I became one of those students the dean always talks about at orientation. "Look at the person next to you. There's a 50% chance she or he will not be here next year." I boarded the plane for Chicago with appointments to visit three colleges on my way home. The following fall found me at Rockford College in Illinois.

Every year winter rolls around, and every year I am reminded of my time in Minnesota. And some years, though not every year, I pull out the envelope of letters and visit the college freshman on the banks of the Red River.

Peace,
Jeffri