Romancing Aggieland

William is about to graduate and he has decided not to “walk” at the commencement, thus saving us yet another eight hour trip to Aggieland. With William graduating, a chapter of our family history comes to a close. I don’t know when will be the next time Kathy and I will make another trip to College Station.

It was about eight years ago that we set feet on the hallowed ground when we took Rob to visit colleges during his junior year in high school. I knew very little about A&M and being a graduate of Ole Miss I somehow had an abnormal aversion for any “cow college,” which was the label we had for all a&m colleges. It was a hot summer day and the campus did not impress me all that much. It was Rob’s decision concerning his college choice, so I tried to remain neutral by not expressing my opinion. After touring the school and listening to a lot of things that didn’t really mean all that much to me, we left College Station for Austin, thinking it probably would be our last time there, not knowing that Rob had a different idea. For him it was love at first sight. He had made his decision.

Austin might have a bigger name than College Station, but it is not bigger in substance. It was dislike at first sight for me, for liberalism with all its arrogance and pretence really rubbed me the wrong way and I smelled its stench the moment I stepped onto the tu campus. (My apologies to our friends at the state capitol. UT is really a great school in her own right.) Michael was only a year behind his brother, but for some odd reason he was seriously thinking about attending UT. I had a strong sense as I was standing in the square at the entrance of the school that my son would lose his faith in God if I were to send him to that university. For a long while Michael really was thinking about going to Austin and he once mentioned to me the only thing he didn’t like were the school colors. I think it was probably a sibling rivalry kind of thing, but Rob somehow decided that he had a monopoly on A&M and was vehemently opposed to the idea of Michael going there. But after becoming an Aggie, I guess Rob finally came to his senses and softened up his stance. Michael quickly switched his allegiance and, a year later, he became an Aggie himself.

With two boys attending the school, I started to take an interest in the university and came to realize that there was so much to love about the place and the rich traditions that the school espoused were no longer outlandish to me. I learned to hum the Aggie War Hymn and often bellowed out a hearty “whoop.”

Every time we visited the school we took our youngest with us. William, who was three years behind Rob, was a brilliant student and was more inclined to arts and literature, so we really didn’t consider A&M very seriously. Unlike the OU people, who actively recruited William, the office of admissions at A&M only paid him “paper service” by merely offering him a National Merit scholarship and not much more. So he ended up going to OU and it turned out to be a misjudgment on my part. William enjoyed his short stay at the school, but his love lay elsewhere and, after a year or so, he himself became an Aggie, which made everything right again. Three brothers were finally together in their affection for and allegiance to a grand university.

Kathy was pretty self-assured and, being a daughter of a Harvard man and having the privilege of being cared for by a world renowned pediatrician in Boston, she had no need to seek a name school to boost her ego. Not so with me though. I quickly attached myself to Ole Miss after I got there, albeit I was a mere graduate student, and learned to love all her traditions, both glorious and ignoble. (I still fly a little rebel flag on my nightstand.) But I have discovered that I am more and more interested in Aggie sports and even have gone so far as to subscribe to Aggie Yell on Rivals and read Texags diligently every morning.

With three boys graduating from A&M, I think I am entitled to call myself an Aggie, even though I don’t have a ring to show for it. It’s kind of trite, but I can at least make the claim of “my sons and my money went to A&M.” After years of flirting with the school, I can now say with certainty that I am an Aggie at heart. I was shopping at United Supermarket and a guy with a pharmacist’s white coat chased me down and asked what year I was and it took me a while to realize I was wearing an Aggie sweat shirt and he was a fellow Aggie brother. I wanted so much to tell a lie by giving a random year, but thought better of it and responded: “All my sons are Aggies, but I went to Ole Miss.” I felt so bad that I disappointed him and actually was overcome by a sense of shame.