Nineteen Seventy-Five: A Year in the Life of a College Sophomore : Taking it Apart

by Mark Small

It was New Year's Eve, 1975. Our college sophomore had just driver his uncle's pickup into the country club swimming pool and school was starting the next day. A real bite! But with a few bongs and a couple of T-900s-a boilermaker with 151 rum for the shot-the semester started out okay. Our young "hero" had to make good grades to stay in his private, upper-middle class, WASP school. Otherwise he was doomed to the hinterlands of mid-north Indiana and the farm of his adoptive aunt and uncle. Classes started well, but all around him swirled the distractions he copping buzzes, being involved in the firing of a professor, speed replacing food to stave off hunger, student demonstrations. Out of this mess was a bright spot, however. He was a crack intercollegiate debater, using insights gleaned from doing drugs to create arguments. (Is that really where they came from?) But his grades, otherwise, stunk. So he bagged finals to thumb 1,500 miles to Maine. That stunk too. Back he went to re-evaluate his young life and hope for enlightenment. A summer loomed ahead. What would he do with it?

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2003