One of the great benefits of meeting people from other places and with different backgrounds is the opportunity to expand your perspectives by interacting with them. I definitely found this to be the case during my college years, with teachers as well as students I met. Sometimes we shared similar backgrounds and perspectives on Life; other times our outlooks were very different, for a variety of reasons, mostly just due to different life experiences.
UGA not only had a large number of students from all across the country, but also a sizable number of international students. Over the five years I was there, in my department alone we had students from Poland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Scotland, Hungary, Taiwan and Jamaica.
And those are just the ones I remember.
The girl from Budapest became a close friend of both mine and a young woman from Savannah, whom I did not know at the time, but later became good friends with, along with her parents and her oldest sister – all separately and unbeknownst to each other! We only discovered our common connection when Judy came back for a visit to Georgia, several years later, and spent several days with Holly and her family, before coming to spend a few days with me.
I only found out later we had mutual connections when I was visiting Holly’s parents one afternoon, afterward, and mentioned how much I had enjoyed having Judy visit with me for a few days. Whereupon the mom said, Yes, we enjoyed having her stay with us too! I was momentarily confused, as I had not known that Judy and Holly were friends, too! Once the realization hit, we all had a good laugh. But then, Judy did not know that I knew either Holly or her parents and oldest sister, through different relationships.
Life is full of surprises!
Another lifelong friendship that came out of those years was a girl I met my first night in Athens when I came up for graduate school orientation. It was two days before classes started, and after the first day of orientation sessions, I walked downtown to get dinner at The Spaghetti House, where I’d never been before. Denise happened to be my server; she was a senior at Clarke Central High School, and a very talented budding artist.
We quickly hit it off, and she introduced me to several of her close friends. We all became good friends, over the next two years, and often went hiking in the nearby mountains together. We remain friends to this day, although she and her husband live clear across the country, in Ashland, Oregon, where he works for the U.S. Forest Service, and Denise has a very successful art studio.
It was Denise who first introduced me to Helen, “Georgia’s Alpine Village,” and Dukes Creek Falls and Panther Creek Falls, just around the corner, along the Richard Russell Scenic Highway. I have been to both many times, and am very glad she showed them to me.
That opened the door to my further exploration of the many jewels in the north GA mountains, where I have been, many times, since.
One of the professors I have never forgotten was my French 104 teacher.
When I first walked into his classroom, I found this short, bald-headed fellow with thick glasses; and my first reaction was that maybe that class was going to be dull and boring.
Boy, was I ever wrong!
He turned out to be one of the most interesting professors I had, lively and full of stories that really brought French history and literature to life! I was so glad I wound up in his class.
I had a similar experience later with a World History professor, whose class on European History, 1500 – to the Present, was a broad overview of that time period, which he likewise filled with interesting stories and anecdotes, that really brought things to life. He was a Polish fellow, with a long name that took some practice to master.
As I remember, he had managed to escape Poland just before the Nazis invaded, starting WWII. So he had actually lived through one of the most tumultuous times in modern history; although he never spoke of that. But he had a real knack of putting things in broader context, in his lectures, so that it wasn’t just about learning “names, dates and places” that we so often think of as the study of “history.”
I was extremely glad I wound up in his class, too; although covering 500 years of nation changes in just a few short months was an almost overwhelming task. I actually stayed on campus over Thanksgiving break that year, primarily to study for his class. One of only two times I felt the need to do that; the other being over one winter break, although I don’t remember which class that was for. Probably one of the two I got a C in!
To be continued…
Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in eastern Liberty County, and are long-time Rotarians. He writes on a variety of topics, and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo. com.