For years I was told that I would not recognize Northwest Arkansas should I visit again, and that was the truth. Funny, you take a thirty-year trip away from a place and things tend to change a bit. I felt sort of lost all the time. Well, not all the time. Definitely not all the time.
My youngest had the idea to meet up in Fayetteville for a renewal of the old Southwest Conference football rivalry between the University of Arkansas, my college alma mater, and the University of Texas, her grad school alma mater, now conference foes again (but in the SEC). She and her boyfriend drove up from Austin, and I flew down from Wisconsin, and my heart is grateful for all the emotions and memories generated by the weekend together.
The actual football wasn’t the greatest, at least from my perspective, but the look on their faces the first time the entire stadium called the Hogs was worth the football. To be honest, it wasn’t the thumping I expected, so I was proud of that, and as I absorbed the loss I recalled that we beat Texas in Little Rock my senior year way back in 1992 just as we joined the SEC, so it isn’t like I have gone without.
It was an early game, so we got to wander through campus a little on a sunny Saturday afternoon afterward, and I enjoyed the three of us being together on a quest to track down my name engraved on a campus sidewalk as part of the beautiful Senior Walk tradition at the University of Arkansas. Seeing my name meant more to me than I expected. After thirty years, my name is still etched on a sidewalk for generations of college students and campus visitors as if to say: You should be aware that I was here.
Yes, I really was here. I once spent three formative years of my life here, and it was good to remember.
It was extra special to visit with Hillary, whose life has been drastically different than mine from the start, and especially to consider that in very real ways her life experience is a direct result of my decision to go to the University of Arkansas in the first place. I have not forgotten walking across campus in awe as a first-generation college student, falling in love with the realization that the world contains wonders I had never imagined. It was there specifically that my horizons expanded, as well as my willingness to set sail from safe harbor on multiple occasions afterward. My wanderlust, which has characterized and now characterizes her life, emanated from that first act of curiosity and courage. I guess it even led her to the sworn enemy territory of the University of Texas!
It would be nice to go back for another visit someday, but it might not happen, and that is okay. This was enough for me. Yes, this was special enough for me. There is no need to be greedy.
Regardless, and forever, Go Hogs!
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