By CLAY MERCER

When I was eighteen my parents shoved my feet into a pair of cowboy boots and sent me to college. To be exact, they sent me to Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, a spectacular liberal arts college in the “little ivy” league.

The little ivy league contains those schools that rank considerably higher than the “kudzu league” schools in the Carolina piedmont and marginally below the Ivy League schools of the northeast.

In short, I was exposed to a widely diverse student population in a setting that practically demanded that I maintain a first name basis with everybody on campus. With less than a thousand full time students, and a twenty-two acre campus, it was impossible not to know each other.

I made friends with people who were, literally, from every continent in the world, except Antarctica. And some of my acquaintances that majored in biology went on to Antarctica after finishing. I had the only pair of cowboy boots on campus.

The Carolina piedmont is vastly different from South Georgia. For one thing, it gets cold in September and doesn’t warm up again until April. It also rains a lot. A LOT.

For another thing, the water tastes funny. I used to have dreams about the well water back home. There aren’t very many dirt roads in the Carolina piedmont, and believe me, I looked. They make up for the shortage of dirt roads by having lots of snow, so people can still experience sliding into ditches and trees without having to be way out in the country where no one can help them.

The main thing I learned at Presbyterian College was that I wanted to go home to South Georgia to live.

After I learned to quit wearing my cowboy boots in public, I found out that there were lots of advantages to being “off at school.” For one thing, that five hour drive which kept me from zipping home for the weekend also kept my parents from zipping over to snatch a knot in my butt whenever I got a low mark on an exam. How convenient.

Another positive was the Hound’s Tooth lounge, which offered, among other recreational choices, billiards, bumper pool, pinball, and draft beer for two bucks a pitcher. Except for Thursday night, Ladies Night, when draft was a buck a pitcher and ladies were…..well, some things are better left unsaid.

The down side to all this was the class work. As a freshman, and a second-class citizen, I suffered through English literature, mathematics, physical education, biology, and religion. Yes, Religion. Religion 101, Old Testament Survey and Religion 102, New Testament Survey were required courses.

My freshman adviser, Mr. Tom Stallworth, was also my professor for Religion 101 and 102. He was keenly aware of my desire to major in business administration. Once, on an essay question, I misspelled the word “burro” and spelled it instead as “burrow”.

Mr. Stallworth’s correction still reverberates in my mind. “Clay, a burrow is a hole in the ground. The word you intended was ‘burro’, which is an ass. As a prospective business major, you will be expected to know the difference.”