One Little Piece Of Paper

The world was different 45 years ago. September 11 was just another day on the calendar. We’d never emailed or texted a message and cars needed mechanics, not computer technicians, to repair them. Phone watches were the things of James Bond movies. And my college of choice, the University of Georgia, ran on the quarter system, not on semesters.

That meant classes started about now, in mid-September, when it actually was beginning to look and feel like Summer was passing the baton to Fall. Fresh out of Fayette County High School and all of 18 years old, I settled into a Russell Hall, a dorm housing 1000 young men, mostly freshmen like me. It was appropriately nicknamed The Zoo. It didn’t take long to realize that I’d driven a lot further from home than just a couple of hours.

My parents were a phone call away, but I was determined to declare my independence. That lasted until the first weekend. Friday afternoon, I was Fayetteville bound. I can’t remember if I claimed Daddy had pressing farm duties or if it was Opening Day of Archery Deer Season. Either way, I stayed the weekend, dillydallying long enough to attend the Evening Service at Bethany before heading back to Athens, arriving close to midnight.

Though I had friends from back home on campus, those early days were pretty lonely. 45 years later, I can admit that I was one homesick puppy, er, Bulldog. It didn’t take long for me to start questioning my decision to come to Athens.

Something arrived in my mailbox that first week in The Zoo. It was the bulletin from my home church, a single piece of paper with an article by our pastor, the Sunday Morning Order of Worship, a list of names in need of prayer, and a bunch of announcements of what the folks back home were up to. One church bulletin.

It didn't just come that first week. For four plus years, it kept coming, whether I lived in the dorm or had moved to an apartment. It was the one tangible thing that most tethered me to home and family and faith. That piece of paper tucked in a mailbox, week in and week out, helped see me through a whole host of challenges and questions and doubts.

Now you know why a University of Georgia diploma hangs on my wall. And even better, why I was still in Athens my senior year to cross paths with a green-eyed beauty from Warner Robins.