Lone Star Loner: Culture Shock in Lubbock, Texas

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We at last get paid. Out of $1,388, they—the federal government and the retirement people—got $391. I almost wanted to run out and join the Proposition 13 people, or sign up for Reagan.

October 10: After class, O. comes by to talk about his paper. He's like so many of them—he's 22, is married with one kid and another on the way, holds down a full-time or nearly full-time job, and is registered in four courses. Is it any wonder they don't really learn much? How do they even survive?

October 22: Around 7:00 I decide I ought to go mail a bundle of job applications. It is pleasant, still clear and sunny. But by the time I turn west on University Avenue I notice that, very quickly, part of the sky is turning brown. Cars' headlights are beginning to come on. The wind is picking up. And the dust is beginning to blow. In a few moments it's like being at the beach in the middle of a storm without rain. For a few minutes I duck into the doorway of a store. A Mexican kid comes along and smiles, and we walk together for about a block. He tells me that in the spring it will be worse.

November 14: [I was getting few nibbles on my job applications.] The dread comes when I get back to the apartment. There is nothing in the mailbox except a telephone bill and a notice that I owe the Commonwealth of Massachusetts $3.94 in back taxes.

November 23: Thanksgiving at the Unitarian Church. The minister reads the Mayflower Compact and we sit down to eat. They are a remarkable group, these Lubbock Unitarians. Inside their little schoolhouse there is a mural with Christ, Socrates, Gandhi, and Buddha—and a poster with a Fellini quotation. At dinner there is talk of Tibetan bells. And, still, these free-thinkers have adopted the protective coloration of the area—frosted and teased hair, polyester, "thank yew," and Instamatics. I found this strange combination very appealing.

November 27: I give my students back their outlines and paragraphs. After class I console B., whose introductory paragraph consisted of four "sentences," three of which were fragments. I have learned to give F's.

December 1: Some of them are so lazy that you forget there are others who actually do worry. But most of them are lazy. When I asked one if his paper hadn't actually been written in 15 minutes, he said, "Closer to five." In class earlier this week I asked them to define "verbiage" (they never use the dictionary). I said, "What word does it sound like? A word I sometimes write on your papers." (I was looking for "verbose.") One kid smiled and asked: "Garbage?"

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