College Chemistry Memories

 

I remember Radiator Hall.

I remember thinking the windows are so small, how can they let the light into the chemistry labs above?

I remember walking into a lecture hall for the first time, the seats stretched out before me, rows and rows of hard plastic and wood beckoning, facing a man that looked both tiny and tall at the same time.

I remember Dr. Carr, who taught me that if you loved someone, you would brew their coffee starting with cold water because the water would be cleaner and there would be less impurities dissolved initially into it.

I remember seeing Dr. Carr always in striped button-down shirts and a bow tie in my mind even though I’m sure that’s not all he wore, with wire rimmed glasses and short light brown hair, almost blonde.  I don't even know if he wore glasses or what his hair color was, but that is how I remember him, these many years later.  

I remember the sticks and balls of organic chemistry molecular models, discovering the intricacies of how the smallest particle of something is put together, how that organization creates properties that makes each piece of matter behave the way it does, freeze and boil and move and bond and react and look the way it does, make it what it is.

I remember the feeling of seeing my preschool sweetheart for the first time in so many years as I walked out of the lecture room after class one day, realizing it had taken college to bring us back together, that we hadn’t seen each other since we were five years old, where holding hands meant going steady and all was innocent and I didn’t know the meaning of hurt in the world and even as my eyes brightened and we talked and reconnected, how little I knew then at twenty of the world than I do now and how I would like to go back and warn myself of what’s coming, what’s out there, what’s yet for her to encounter in this big world she looks at so trustingly yet, walking out of that lecture hall and into the sunlight, holding her hand above her eyes to block the glare. 

 

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold

10-6-21