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Herb Benham: Baby off to college — and dad off to mourn
| Friday, Aug 29 2008 2:16 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Aug 29 2008 2:16 PM
We were fine until we drove by the Claremont Hotel and turned on KFOG five minutes before we were to move him into his dorm room.
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“Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac was playing.
“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
Cause I’ve built my life around you
“But time makes you bolder
“Children get older
“I’m getting older too
“Oh, take my love, take it down ...”
I had to put on my dark glasses. His mother and I were like Tang — we dissolved. He probably thought we were nuts already and “Landslide” swept us off the edge.
Last weekend, we took Thomas, our youngest, to college. I learned a couple of things, the first being that boys are different from girls.
With Katie, the oldest, we fogged the windows all the way to Fresno after we dropped her off at Davis. With Thomas, you can blame it on Stevie Nicks, but that’s about as far as it went.
More parent education. You spend your whole life learning how to say goodbye. What a thing to get good at.
Bittersweet is the word. Sweet because that’s what he’s been. Bitter because he hasn’t been a lick of trouble.
He asked about dinner at breakfast and ate everything on his plate, even if it was green. He was company on the denim couch for his father during Lakers, Dodgers and middle-of-the night World Cup games.
I learned something else. He was lucky. His father was fine, but he had this mother. Hard to imagine anybody loving him more, but that could happen some day.
The night before, we stayed with my brother in the East Bay. At 10:30 p.m., Thomas opened the sliding glass door into our room. He started talking about how much he was going to miss not having cats around. The conversation was about cats and it wasn’t. He could have slid the door closed, but he didn’t. Everybody says goodbye in their own way and in their own time. Before we left Bakersfield, he sat with the dogs on the back porch for a few minutes. He stroked Gennie, the black lab, and talked softly to the blind dog.
It was 103 degrees when we loaded the truck in Bakersfield. Sixty-two when we unloaded it in Berkeley. This boy was smart in more ways than one.
“Dad, I don’t know if I’m going to come back for summers,” he said.
I couldn’t argue. I’d sweated through my shirt and Jockey shorts. Just expect a roommate come next July.
Besides the three skateboards, Thomas had less stuff than his older sister. It took an hour to set up his sixth-story room. It took me almost as long to figure out the U-lock on his bike.
T-shirts folded and put away, we went to lunch at Crossroads, an airy cafeteria where Thomas will be eating most of his meals. Lunch, which consisted of turkey, roast beef, or ham sandwiches, a tomato bisque soup, Lay’s Potato Chips and chocolate chip cookies, was free. That’s probably the last free thing we’ll get from Berkeley.
It was time to say goodbye. His mother hugged him twice, the second time because the first was shorter than she would have liked. I went for one, but found myself not in a big hurry to let go.
Two hours later, his mother texted him. The parent guide said to give your freshman some space, and his mother deduced that two hours was space enough.
“I just had an awesome bike ride,” he wrote back.
Before going to bed, I sent him a text message that read: “Sweet dreams, son.” His response was “Thanks Dad. You too.”
Parent guide be damned.