Those flocks of pretty young people bubbling with naive enthusiasm always made me feel like Ed Asner. Then I started college. Not just that, but signed up for daytime classes at a community college, which probably makes the experience a lot more like high school than I imagine a university would be. Community college feels like time travel back to my Wonder Years. Couples cuddle in stairwells, kids cluster in hallways comparing grades, classmates hurry to finish homework before the teacher arrives.
Fashion accelerates the time warp.
At any moment I expect my best friend circa 1975 to pop out of the girls' room and talk me into cutting class. My first few weeks at college, I was confident, even cocky. Sure, the kids surrounding me could tell I was no teenager, but certainly they also saw my inherent coolness. I wore the right bell-bottom jeans, the right clunky shoes. I knew better.