GREEN ROOM

The rain bothered me at first, but I found it offered a suitable backdrop for my jaunt back to West Liberty on a chilly day in early March. That day was a late-in-life effort to do some things I have been wanting to do for a long time. 

I had asked Coach Mike if I could watch a Topper basketball practice this season on one of my free days from part-time government classes at Central. He told me I was always welcome, but I seemed to find an excuse not to go. I have been quite adept at making up reasons not to do things my whole life. 

Sure, I went to watch the practice, but don’t tell Coach I had other reasons, more personal ones for my journey up the winding roads WV-88. My trip was more deliberate and contemplative. I have been back in Wheeling for over twelve years now, but I had never really walked across the quad that a younger A.J. walked forty years ago.

I took a hard right up the steep hill near Bonar Hall, where I spent my first year. I passed Krise Hall and neared the turn where I could look down at Beta Hall, half-expecting a cautionary sign reading "Proceed with Caution." Like a haunted house, my senior-year dorm nestled in the afternoon darkness and drizzling rain.

I pushed the wipers a little harder to see the memories of that year. I shook my head at the unfolding stories, chuckled a few times, and then took a picture to show Chaka. I needed to move on for now.

I parked and made my way to the quad. At its center stood the tall flagpole. Gone was the large wooden base where, as a Phi Sig pledge, I had to lean with my knees jutting forward at right angles to “think about it” after a late night of mud-diving or whenever one of my pledge brothers said something stupid. But the flag remained, as were the numerous sidewalks that led students outward to other destinations on campus. 

The Quad at West Liberty University

I took one sidewalk to the bottom floor of the library, where I strolled down the long hallway several times, looking into the empty rooms where I once sat in my English classes. On the main floor of the library, the entryway seemed larger and more spacious. Countless study tables and computers replaced the coziness of the massive bookshelves.

Another sidewalk led to the student union. Where were this burrito place, the corner coffee shop, and the pick and go store when I was a student? Were there still dances on the main floor? Someone removed the pool tables downstairs, and the aroma of stale beer no longer wafted from the little room I remembered as the pub. Nothing appeared to be what it once was to me.

I sat down in one of the many comfy couches that quietly huddled together in a space I recall as electric on a Thursday evening. Students were still on campus, working in class, practicing with their teams, or even working at jobs. Despite the changes and emptiness, the feeling I once had walking through here returned to me. I sat with my memories, wondering if this place remembered me, even a little bit.

I stepped outside, opened my umbrella, and returned to the quad. I stepped onto the longest sidewalk, which ran the length of campus, stopping at Kelly Theater. For the longest time, I have really wanted to visit the theater. I had spent the bulk of my years there acting on stage, taking speech classes, and figuring out just who I was going to be during my college years.

I quietly walked up the steps as if I were visiting the theater for the first time and slowly opened the door. A sense of reverence enveloped me as I stepped into the dark theater. Smaller safety lights illuminated areas around the sloped audience seating. I wanted to walk down the stairs toward the lighted stage, but a self-imposed restraint pinned my feet to the top of the staircase. This spot would be far enough.

Was I the ghost here, unable to touch the memories that flickered around me? The people I saw on the empty stage appeared so alive, but so was I. Bill and I argued as Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns in The Front Page as we did forty years ago. John Reilly winced and repeatedly told me to start again as I struggled with an Irish accent in his Voice for the Stage class. I sang and danced around a huge wooden doghouse with my light blue blanket as Linus in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

More and more ghosts traveled across the lighted stage as I stood there, enraptured by a life I once lived. The longer I stayed, the more the ghosts peered at me from the corners of their eyes, subtly nudging me to leave and return another time.

The hallway beside Kelly Theater led to other parts of the building: the art gallery, the music department, and a row of lockers leading out the back door. At the end of the lockers, the green room awaited. 

The green room is a place where members of the cast and crew can quietly unwind away from the stage. It was in this room that we could think about the performances we had just delivered and those we had yet to give. It was the crossroads between what was and what could be.

Of course, we were kids then, still learning to lower our voices, particularly during rehearsals or performances. The excitement of life often overwhelmed us. Of course, those were times when my college advisor, Meta Lasch, would descend the metal stairs from her office above the green room to tell us to keep it down or get out. We always stayed.

I looked around the small room, futilely putting together pieces from two different puzzles. As I had hoped all day, I wanted my perception of what stood before me to match my memories of the past, seeking some tangible relic whose significance remained for all but was understood by only a few.

I noticed the couches and the dark walls that were so similar to what I remembered. A locked metal-mesh door cut off the office at the top of the metal stairs nestled against the wall. The door to the theater stood open to the same lighted stage I faced as an audience on the opposite side minutes earlier. I'm not sure I should be here anymore.

“Hi,” I whispered. I did not want to startle the two students who sat on one of the couches. “Do you mind if I come in for a minute?”

They looked at each other. I felt some doubt and uneasiness emanating from them. I remembered that I was a disheveled 60-year-old man with a gray beard, wearing a damp hoodie, who happened to drop by to “come in for a minute.” That could be creepy in our current world.

“I am sorry. I should have knocked or something. I am just looking around. I graduated back in 86 and just wanted to see how much things have changed. I saw something. I ignored the two students and walked across the room. Mounted on the wall were two large wooden fraternity paddles. At the center were the carved Greek letters:  ΑΨΩ. 

“OMG. You kept these? I can’t believe this. Is Alpha Psi Omega still around?”

One of the students embraced the moment with me. “Of course. Were you in Alpha Psi?”

I moved even closer to the large paddles to read the smaller signatures surrounding the large ΑΨΩ. I moved closer to my past as I scanned the paddles for my name. “I know my name is here,” I laughed like a child unwrapping a special present on this birthday.

I found it right above Cheryl Saseen’s signature. Cheryl wrote her name in a black Sharpie that stood out prominently on the paddle. Mine? My name was a slightly muted silver Sharpie. Why did I write with that color Sharpie? I could barely see my name. Still, this was pretty damn cool. 

I turned back to the student, “Would you mind getting a couple of pictures of me with this? No one will believe this is still here.”  I gave her my phone. “Do you know how to take pictures with a phone?”

She laughed. “I think I can figure it out.” I attempted to move as close as possible to the paddle so I could point at my name, but pieces of furniture were pushed closely together along the wall. “You know what?” my photographer asked. “Why don’t you climb on top of the chair so I can take a better shot?”

“Are you sure?” I glanced out the door to make sure no adult came in to catch me stepping on university furniture. I climbed onto the chair, then contorted my aged body into an uncomfortable position to look back at the camera and smile.

Beta Hall 

The English Hallway

The Stage

Forty Years Ago

REGENERATION

 

Oh no.

It wasn’t there anymore, my fob, the one I needed to start my car.

Ten minutes ago, it was attached to my blue Salt Life lanyard along with my house keys and Wellness Center ID. I felt the lanyard snag on my typically overpacked suitcase as I hoisted it onto the rear bumper of my Explorer.

Bone-chilling air off of Lake Erie filled the empty parking lot of the Hilton Garden Inn. The trucks that had blocked the unmerciful Mid-March winds of 2026 the previous night were gone. Some remaining flurries still swirled around me this Sunday morning. I stood alone in a frigid wasteland in northern Pennsylvania.

As I pushed my suitcase completely into the back of my Explorer, I kept an eye out for pieces of my fob. I spotted a shiny, round battery resting on the concrete, alone with me in the parking lot. But where were the other pieces?

“God. It is so cold,” I began. “What have I done?”

I searched the area for the two pieces of my fob. I found one half snuggled between two uneaten pepperoni rolls at the bottom of a Food Lion grocery bag full of ginger ale, small bottles of liquor, and candy wrappers. 

Once I had the remaining section, which hid beneath my suitcase, I shut the back hatch and began to put the key fob back together. I slow-stepped to the side door, hoping to be finished and ready to exit the cold by the time I reached the driver's side.

Nothing. Nothing clicked. Nothing moved.

I couldn't get into my Explorer. I ran to the back, hoping the hatch was still open. It was also locked, closed by my own stupidity and locked by my own ineptitude only minutes earlier. 

I grew colder and felt my fingers losing warmth. My dress shirt and lightweight vest retained enough body heat to keep me warm for ten minutes or so, but that time had long since passed. 

I briskly walked to the side door of the hotel where I had exited moments earlier. The cleaning man who swept the rug and I had exchanged passing greetings earlier on my way out, back when I was in a more optimistic Sunday-morning mood. 

Locked. Damn. No key card. No cleaning man. 

I gazed through the tempered glass of the door, hoping for someone to walk down the long hallway. The little entrance barely shielded me from the cold, and I winced at the thought of the warmth on the other side of that half-inch of glass. I turned around in the small entryway and looked back out at my SUV sitting by itself in the parking lot.

Jim and Lisa had already gone. My brother likes to get on the road early. Michael, Emily, and the kids. Surely, they are moving slowly this morning. Nope. Gone. What about the Hilltopper team bus? Is there anyone at all?

I was on my own. 

Life often sends us down paths that we must travel alone, not because we have done anything wrong but because we need the journey to evolve, to become a better version of ourselves.

I zipped my vest up as high as it would go, pulled down on my UNC toboggan, and began the long walk around the corner of the building to the front door. I needed a plan. I needed to eliminate one factor affecting my ability to think: the icy cold.

The huge lobby was empty but welcomingly warm. I walked to one of the couches near a table where Emily and Michael’s son, Enzo, and I had put together a Disney puzzle Saturday morning before the Hilltoppers game. We spent an hour there, eating a Rice Krispies treat and looking for the missing pieces to the puzzle that Enzo had dropped on the floor.

Once I had a chance to slow down, I found my understanding of the key fob had improved. Even though I was able to put all the pieces in the right spots, I still struggled to snap the fob closed. Sometimes I think we get so far in life, only to hit more roadblocks.

The nice manager who gave Enzo his Rice Krispies treat stood at the front desk this morning. I waited patiently until she finished her work before bothering her. “Ma’am? Would you happen to have a rubber band? I can’t get this fob to close and need a rubber band to hold it together so I can go home.” 

“Oh, dear. Let me see what I have back here. Give me a minute.” She disappeared through a door behind the desk.

As she did that, I looked around the lobby and over to the Safari Grill, where the bar sat dark and empty. On Friday evening, the televisions around the bar were alive with the excitement of NCAA tournament games. People who know me will agree that I do not typically sit in a bar all night watching games and socializing. I have not been that way since college.

I loosened my self-imposed restraints and spent Friday night planted on the same barstool at the Safari Grill, engaging in a life that I did not want to pass me by.  I started by having an international conversation with a German bottle printer visiting the United States for his job, where we spoke about the differences between our two countries and his love for all that the US offers. 

As the night passed, more people came and went. I shared unused crossword puzzles I carried with me in case I was bored. I talked with the head chef about my delicious Beyond Beef burger. And I actually congratulated members of the championship West Liberty Men’s Basketball Team as they travelled back and forth through the grill to film sessions before tomorrow’s game. I was Norm, sitting at the end of the bar at Cheers, a regular unprepared to leave. 

My night in the Safari Grill was one of the better nights I have had in a long time. And, honestly, the experience continued the next day when I watched the NCAA basketball tournament kicking off here in Erie. Having watched West Liberty all year, I was sad they lost, but I was honored to witness the story the players and coaches had this season. Poignancy lives in bittersweet loss and the challenges life presents us.

So, when the manager came back with a solid, thick rubber band, I knew I had to take back my own story. I could rewrite how I viewed the events of the key fob, the desolation of the parking lot, and my being alone, not just as an undesirable ending to my weekend, but perhaps as a new beginning for something better.

With my key fob held tightly together by multiple wrappings of the rubber band, I once again walked down the hallway I had used nearly an hour ago. I marched to my Explorer with determination and the belief that my repair job would work. Uncle Vince would be proud of how I MacGyvered the fob. I clicked the open-door button multiple times.

Nothing. Nothing clicked. Nothing moved.

Defeated, I began to walk back to the lobby. I asked myself what I needed to do. I'll call Jim, Michael, or my nephew Chris. There is no shame in depending on others. Right? But I knew I could handle this. You’ve got this.

Standing in the middle of the parking lot, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the lanyard where the key fob normally stayed before I unceremoniously ripped it off. I saw that key, that one I never use. It is shiny and silver and does nothing but open the door.

I walked back to the driver’s side, inserted the generic key, and opened the door. The alarm started going off. I jumped inside and slammed the door, believing that would shut it off.  It didn’t. 

I pushed the ignition button. Nope. The alarm continued. I repeatedly pushed the hazard button off and on. Nope. Think. Think.

Someone, maybe my son Robert or one of my students, said that I could actually start my Explorer with a fob that has dead batteries. I stuck the fob right beside the ignition. Nope. I felt around for an opening or latch underneath the steering wheel. Nothing. The door? No. Think. Robert always looks on YouTube when he needs to find out how to do something. 

According to a YouTube video, there is a small slot inside the armrest storage area at the very bottom. A person just has to empty all the junk and clutter onto the passenger seat and simply stick the fob with a dead battery in the slot to start the car. 

Ten minutes later, I was driving southbound on I-79. As I traveled the same highway I had on Friday when I arrived, I knew this was a different journey now, one in which I could recall my experience in the Hilton Garden Inn parking lot with humor or angst, but one that has made me a bit more confident about how I handle an unknown future.