Memory Day: Twenty-Two Years Ago Today

Twenty-two years ago today, on August 16, 2001, I arrived in Florida to become a music grad student at Florida State.

Fresh off the Amtrak auto-train in Sanford, FL, I first had another 280 miles to drive before reaching Tallahassee. The road trip was about as boring as I-81 to Virginia Tech, although I greatly enjoyed discovering I-10 where speed limits were never enforced and the slowest cars were going 85.

I arrived at Parkwood Apartments (now rebranded with imaginary class as The Edge @ 401) around 2 PM, a quiet cinderblock building that was comparably clean and less damp than other apartments nearby. It was across from a cemetary and just three blocks from the music buildings, at the end of a row of fraternity and sorority houses.

It only took a few trips to move my stuff up from the car, with the biggest hassle being my 17" CRT gaming monitor that weighed about 36 pounds. (My parents drove down the next day with my desk, bed, TV, and dressers, after which we scoured all of Tallahassee for reputable sofa dealers and also purchased the coffee table that's still in my living room today). Here is what the apartment would ultimately look like after the shopping spree:

On that first day, however, the rooms were sparse. My computer was set up on the floor, and I had not yet signed up for a Toast.Net account to get Internet over my 56kb high-speed modem. Instead, I spent the afternoon studying for music school placement exams.

As my undergraduate composition professor, Dr. Polifrone, wrote in my letter of recommendation, "Knowing the weaknesses of our theory and our literature and history programs, it is difficult for me to forecast his level of proficiency in these areas. No doubt Brian will be able to over come any deficient areas he may have." Therefore, I spent my first day in Tallahassee inside, reading Joel Lester's Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music, in which the author tries to justify getting a music theory degree by retrofitting made-up systems onto freely creative works. (All of my cramming would pay off, as I managed to pass all 4 entrance exams and be absolved of any remedial penalty classes).

For dinner, I walked 2 blocks over to Popeyes, which was super convenient but also surrounded by enough panhandlers that I would chose to drive there more often than not in the future. In the evening, I chatted with the Spellerberg sisters (Anna, Emily, and Becca) on AIM and then capped off the day with some Diablo 2.