Remember the halcyon days of yore when you were young, full of
energy, and you enjoyed Parents’ Night at school?
Those days are probably gone for most of us. Youth has been
replaced by cynicism; energy by lethargy and binge drinking
followed by binge sleeping. It’s not too likely that when
your parents show up at school you run around excitedly showing
your latest finger-painting or 100 percent on a spelling test
posted on the wall with sticky stars.
In fact, outside of dispensing cash via mail or direct deposit,
a weekly phone call or two, and providing the turkey at
Thanksgiving, parents aren’t always a desired entity to
integrate into your college life.
Fortunately for most students who don’t live at home,
it’s rare to be forced into merging College George with Son
or Daughter George (worlds are colliding Jerry, worlds are
colliding). When it does happen, though, it’s really not that
different from those proud Parents’ Nights of the past.
We students have to lead our parents around, showing off our
good sides and skimming over the less parentally desirable aspects
of college life. For instance, you want to show your parents the
view from your Westwood highrise, but you may not want to point out
other things like, “Hey Mom, that stain on the floor is where
my next door neighbor Kramer got alcohol poisoning and puked his
guts out last Tuesday.” Bad idea.
This last weekend was Homecoming/Bring your folks weekend, and
it brought a few things to my attention. Namely, that there are
advantages to being a humanities/art major.
Sure, if you’re an engineer or a pre-med student, you can
write up some reports and draw up some charts to show the
exorbitant amount of future earnings that will one day help keep
your parents in the nicest retirement home around, but more
important than anything is the ability to entertain your parents.
Think about it: do you really want your parents to be bored and
have nothing better to do than ask you personal questions and rifle
through your things. And, let’s face it, showing your parents
the new binary code you wrote or the pictures of the rat lymph
nodes you’ve been salvaging will take up a couple minutes at
best, and you’ve got a whole weekend to think about.
My dad came into town and I found myself using my North Campus
knowledge (however feeble it admittedly is) to make the weekend
pass by problem-free.
North Campus classes can help you accomplish bonding with your
parents. He drove into town from scenic Fresno, Calif., straight
down the 5 and 99 freeways. He would have been miserably whining
about the boring ride if he hadn’t been listening to Bob
Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks,” which I gave him
for his birthday. We also proceeded to discuss the album’s
merits for a half hour period after he arrived (Music History
5).
After dinner that night, as the conversation began to hit a
lull, I reached deep into my brain, and remembered we had both seen
the new P.T. Anderson film, “Punch-Drunk Love.” Our
collective musing about the color symbolism, natural light shot
choices, and Adam Sandler’s dynamic performance gave us
fodder to carry the conversation well into the night (Film and TV
106).
Saturday we went to the football game, and much to our surprise
the Toledo-led Bruins won. After revelling in our victory got old,
I had to come up with some way to keep my dad busy for one last
night. Thankfully, looking through my desk, I found a short story I
had just written (English 134). My dad read it, digested it, and
then gave me a lecture on character arc (he had majored in English
at Berkeley once upon a time).
My weekend passed without incident, even amiably. Thanks to a
little culture that could all be learned in open general education
here at UCLA, this Parents’ Weekend deserved a gold star
sticker of its own. Student George didn’t explode.