I wrote last week about a class I took as an undergraduate at Lincoln Memorial University during Winter Quarter 1985 called In Search of Self. Though I might have trouble finding things on my desk that I placed there yesterday, I went straight to the file cabinet at home and found the notebook I kept in that class thirty-nine years ago.
On the first day of class the instructor had all students introduce themselves, their hometowns, majors, student classification, and one thing each liked about him-/herself. Including Instructor Sue Sanders, the class was comprised of thirty-nine warm bodies from six different states.
The notebook was actually a journal of self-reflections that were responses to assigned textbook questions and in-class activities. A large envelope is stapled inside the front cover. Over the years the envelope became sealed due to the extreme temperature differences in the garage shed where my college notes were stored for many years.
Opening that envelope was like opening a time capsule. One of the items it contained was a numbered list of descriptive traits on pink note paper, in my cursive handwriting. I presume this was my opinion of ten of my best qualities at the time of the class: respectful of others, mind my own business, clean, dependable, trustworthy, friendly, not lazy, sense of humor, sensitive, not fickle. There was also in my handwriting a list of ten traits I would look for in an ideal mate. I wasn’t too demanding—all I sought was one who was:

Understanding of my needs and wishes;
Not willing to let me walk all over her;
Had capacity for loving and caring for children;
Possessed a desire for neatness and order;
Was basically intelligent;
A good lover;
A good companion;
Loved material possessions;
Was a good money manager;
Was easy to relate to and be with.

The next item from my paper time capsule was some type of activity that I obviously did in class with a now unknown classmate. In his handwriting, based on the activity, he described me as follows:

Ronnie is the type of person that likes to be outside and be very close to his family. He is a nice man and loves to spend money on his favorite hobbies. Ronnie is mostly with other people when he is doing what he likes best. But occasionally, he likes to be by himself.

Oh, how I have changed!
The envelope also included a scale for rating my wellness. One of the many yes/no items was:

Each American man, woman and child is currently spending about $600
annually for medical care. Do you think this is a good buy?

I checked “no”. Not only have I changed, but so have the times! Average monthly healthcare spending in America is presently double what annual spending was five decades ago. According to a quick Google search on my phone, in 2022, U.S. healthcare spending reached $4.5 trillion, which averages to $13,493 per person. Need any more evidence of inflation? (Source: https://www.pgpf.org Retrieved July 23, 2024)
Yet another item sealed in the envelope was a Daily Solitude Log for the first week of April 1985. This log, in my own cursive penmanship on lined notebook paper (and my cursive has declined over the years), obviously was the result of a requirement to be alone for a period of time each day to reflect on the “here and now”.
The capstone surprise from this practically forgotten treasure from the past was a folded 18” X 24” self-portrait of myself done in pencil. You’d be amazed how little I’ve changed in appearance, though my arms are now the same length and my neck is not nearly as long! Stringbean (a good Google search if you do not know who he was) and I might have been cousins, at least judging by my “selfie”. I have changed in many ways during the years, but I doubt even Betty Bullen could make an artist of me!
There are things we question “why” we must endure when they are occurring, but time has its way of occasionally revealing the reasons. I know I scoffed at the idea of taking a class to find myself when I never felt lost. Looking back, one of the best things about the class now is being able to see how I felt and thought as a youth on the brink of being twenty. O the blissful ignorance of youth! The world looked so different then, so full of promise, expectations, goals, and the great unknown.
One of the class activities asked me to determine how long I would like to live. At nineteen, almost twenty, seventy-five seemed long enough—at fifty-nine, I think I’ll push that out to, say, at least eighty-five!

ANSWER TO QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 25
Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. What is it called today? ANSWER: GOLF
QUESTION OF THE WEEK # 26
When do you know you’re getting old? (See next week’s article in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.)