I took eight college students to Austin last week. In my role at the university, we hosted a community journalism symposium at the UT-Austin campus. It was a partnership with the UT Journalism School and the University of Kentucky. My boss at Tarleton graciously kicked in some funds for our college journalists to attend.
Many of my colleagues shy away from student travel. It’s a lot of red tape and paperwork and crossing your t’s. But the students get so much out of it. I believe it’s well worth the trouble. Last week was no exception.
We partnered with the Institute for Rural Journalism and honored the publisher of the Uvalde Leader-News for their heroic coverage of the tragedy that occurred there in May 2022.
We made a day of it and hosted more than 60 newsroom leaders from across the state. We held morning and afternoon panel discussions and served lunch. The students got to meet folks who could be their future employers. The professionals were reassured that there are, indeed, bright and hardworking young people on the way up. It was a wonderful experience.
We got to town early Wednesday afternoon, met, hosted our event and were back on the road about 24 hours later. We rented a 12-passenger van and I was the chauffeur. The whirlwind culminated with us making our way back up US 281 to Stephenville. We were winding our way through the northern edge of the Hill Country into Lampasas when I looked in the rearview and realized I was the only one still awake. They had all zonked out and I was left at the helm when a Townes Van Zandt song came across my playlist. All of sudden, I experienced a moment of déjà vu.
I flashbacked to a time when I was driving a similar van on a similar highway. A similar song was on the radio. There were a similar group of young people asleep in the back, but they weren’t college students— not all of them anyway. They were musicians in a honky tonk band.
We’d drive across the country for one-night stands in clubs and taverns. The money wasn’t great, but we made some memories.
Then, in my moment of déjà vu, it occurred to me. The musicians on that road trip back then were the same age as the students I was chauffeuring. Somehow, I’ve become twice as old as I was back then. Time slows down for no one, and that’s okay. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” That’s not always true though.
I tend to believe we get a little wiser with every passing day.
Periodic flashbacks to yesteryear are nostalgic, but I wouldn’t go back to those days for anything. Today is good. Living in the present is good. Being grateful for everything those experiences have given us is good.
We learn, we grow and we persist.
Age is a state of mind.
Legendary actress Sophia Loren once said, “There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”
Don’t look back. Look ahead to the next adventure. Don’t long for yesterday, aspire to tomorrow.
Source: Freepik.com