College Days

The red scooter was my first mode of transportation my freshman year at Brigham Young University when I arrived in 1985.

I immediately experienced culture shock moving from the suburbs of Washington DC to Provo, Utah. I went from Timberland shoes and wool sweaters to paisley prints and bolo ties. I actually saw guys peg the legs of their jeans with safety pins! It took a few months to appreciate the 1980s west coast fashion statement known as “trendy.” But I caught on and rode the wave, including the wave hairdo!

Here’s me and my best friend Kristen Drage from Newport Beach. We’re in my dorm room during the 2 hours on alternate Sundays when girls were allowed in the boys’ dorms. That’s SO BYU! Oh, and check out the car posters behind us! That was SO “Ferris Buhler’s Day Off.” But that was the extent of our rebellion–conspicuous consumption dorm adornment! I still don’t own a Ferarri.

Here’s a pic of me and Collette Hickman at the Chi Triella Christmas dance. I was a member of Tau Sig. We didn’t have real fraternities and sororities at BYU, just “social clubs.” We ran through the fountains on campus and cleaned out horse stalls for rush. It may have been vanilla fun, but we did have a great time and I met a lot of great friends.

More good friends: Troy, Julie, Kristen and me. Notice the looped belt. I was actually years ahead in style on that one! But if that doesn’t date me, think about this: we didn’t have digital cameras, cells phones, and nobody had a personal computer. How did we survive? We typed our papers! And we actually hung out with friends instead of just reading their Facebook pages.

I lived for almost seven years (through undergrad and law school) at The Downs condos in Provo. They were gingerbread town homes with a hot tub in front. One night the gate was locked when it shouldn’t have been so I took matters into my own hands. I ended up with a rash from something in the tub which was why it was closed in the first place.

One of the greatest things about living in Provo was the nearby mountains, canyons and trails. This pic friends and I up at Squaw Peak that overlooks Utah County. Over the years, I ended up running almost 20,000 miles, much of which was up mountain canyons near this vista. Gotta love stonewash, tapered jeans and white tennis shoes!

Provo being what it is, we had to be creative with entertaining ourselves. This usually involved something outdoors. On really crazy nights we would drive to the other side of Utah Lake and drop through a hole in the ground called Nutty Putty. Exploration of the caves ended in a section called the birth canal. You can only imagine!

I think this is the only picture I have of my days at the BYU Law School. I must have been studying too much! I spent four more years in Provo to get my law degree. Now, for the astute, it did not take me four years to finish. Rather I took one year off to complete all the pre med undergraduate courses in preparation for medical school. See below. But, I wasn’t always studying. I trained for and ran my first marathon, started writing a novel and pick up playing the piano after many years in hiatus. I found that having diversion made school that much more enjoyable!

After graduating Law School in 1995, I attended Tulane Medical School in New Orleans. Talk about another culture shock. It was the first time I heard someone use the N word out loud and in public and saw my first dead body lying on the street–and no, it wasn’t part of the medical school training. I only spent a year in New Orleans and, aside from the dead body, enjoyed the culture, music and especially food.

And that is a cadaver in front of us in the photo!