By Harold Brummett

Denmark Star Route

 

The Life Long Learner program at the University of Mississippi (the institution stopped being Ole Miss when Robert Khayat took over) intrigued me and I took a course. I settled on English 302 fiction workshop. 

I had taken graduate level courses in the past under the revered Barry Hannah, but that was a long time ago. I wanted to be tuned up and re-learn some of the basics. I wanted to write with other students that brought laptops and tablets to class, who had a perspective of this new century and not of the old.  

Barry once said that all a writer needed was a Bic pen and a pad of paper. Now, I wonder. 

There are some rules one needs to know when going to a Life Long Learner class. Number one is you have to be old, like over 65 old. 

Two, there has to be a space in the class that is not filled by a paying student. (so you select three or four that you might like to take and hope you get in one)  

Three, the professor/instructor/teacher has to say it is okay to have an old person in the class. 

Four, you have to register. 

Five, you have to pay to park. 

Six, you can audit or get a grade. There are more administrative hurdles to cross and a few hoops to jump through but fortunately, there are kind people along the way that take the time and patience to guide you. (Thanks again Ms. Boston)

The professor, Dr. Wang welcomed me into the class. The syllabus was clear, the instructions concise and soon I was writing with my contemporaries. Dr. Wang shepherded us along with frequent praise and kind corrections as the pages were marked up with thoughtful comments and helpful guidance. 

 My classmates at first viewed me with (at least from my perspective) suspicion. Curiosity came next as I tried to keep comments sane, relevant and rare. My worldview shaped by sixty-seven years on the planet was a bit different from theirs. When I attended the University there was no student union that I recall – only the ‘grill’. I watched the new student union being built during the same time my classmates’ parents were being born. 

I had to take a breath and step back as these young capable adults wrote stories that sometimes I had a hard time relating to. Other times their prose was spot on and moving. I remembered the times that when flying in the Army the pilot, co-pilot and crew chief, if you added up our birthdays would have been less than my current age. It was a lesson in itself to see them as adults starting out on the grand adventure. 

Life Long Learning is something we do consciously or unconsciously, at the University or with something aggravating – like getting a new phone or navigating a new roundabout. 

Without learning, there is very little Life.