Nothing puts into perspective just how old you’ve truly become more than visiting a college campus. I guess there is still a part of me that forgets that I am no longer “college age.” Despite being full aware of how many years have actually passed, my college career doesn’t seem that long ago. Maybe it’s just that the memory of deeply dissapointing my father by dropping out of college is still so vivid in my mind.

Walking through Norris Hall yesterday sent long forgotten synapses firing up my spine. Seeing the kids working on a Sunday, all huddled in a room silently working on drawing tables on various projects. It made me nostalgic for those days. When I was in college, the only time it was acceptable to be cartooning was when you were turning in strips for the college paper. Certainly you didn’t want to be caught cartooning in the art building. The 2nd floor was for the fine arts, the 3rd for the commercial arts. My fine art professors considered cartooning to be a distraction. My commercial art professors considered it to be an occasional illustration tool, but mostly a distraction. The idea that anyone in that department, from either floor, would actually encourage me to pursue a career in cartooning as laughable.

I entered University in 1989 and dropped out in 1992. There was one computer lab. I think they were full of Apple 2es, I can’t remember. I do remember the one computer art professor was widely considered a joke. In Norris Hall, every room is equipped with a projector and a 12″ cintiq attached to it. Below the Cintiq sits a Mac Pro tower. Students can bring in a project on a memory stick, the professor can plug it into the Mac, display it and make notes on the cintiq for the whole class to see. One room is wall to wall Mac Pro towers attached to 22 inch cintiqs. There are classes for traditional comic book lettering, character design, cartooning, and webcomics. It was hard not to get a tear in my eye.

On a day-to-day basis, my opinion shifts about my career choice. Some days it feels like I have lighting in a bottle and others it feels like I’ve constructed a house of cards that’s about to collapse at any moment. I can’t imagine advising anyone to pursue this existence on purpose. I know we wrote a book, but it always felt like the book was more of a conversation between two people who are already stuck. These kids still have a chance to run away and pursue a career in accounting.

Today David and I are going to sit in classes. We’re expected to contribute but I imagine these kids have as much to teach me as I have to teach them. And as excited as I am for everything these kids have here in Savannah, as jealous as I am that I never in a million years would have had the same thing when I was in college, I feel something rising up in me that I never thought I would never feel an urge to express.

There’s a part of me that wants to beg these kids to have a “back up plan.”

Today I understand my father just a little bit more.