HALLOWED HALLS OF HIGHER ED
The Church of the Nazarene built colleges. One was in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The campus was a 327-acre estate gifted to the church. It was situated in the countryside just outside Mt. Vernon. A river runs through it. When it first opened, there was only one dorm built—brick colonial style with cupolas of shining copper adorning the rooftop. Girls in one wing and boys in the other. The old mansion was the administration building. Built between 1860 and 1870, it was originally owned by Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior during President Grant’s administration. Existing barns and stables served as classrooms and provided space for other uses, like the student center and dining hall.
Every Friday, before winter set in, the school would host a cookout for students and their families. $10 bought you a steak and baked potato dinner with salad and vegetables. It was held on the rolling lawn between the barn doubling as the student center/dining hall and the mansion, overlooking the reflection pond. I went with my parents nearly every Friday the first year the school opened.
My brother, Floyd, was a member of the first freshman class and went on to become the student body president his sophomore year. He was also in the choir and, of course, a basketball star. My brother Dwayne also went to MVNC. They both met their future wives at the college. Being the good Nazarene that I was, it was the natural choice of school for me to attend as well. Just like high school, the Hoffman name and reputation preceded me.
My freshman year at Mt. Vernon was like being back at church camp. Many of my camp friends and several from Marion First chose to go there, too—Kim Scholz (the very same Kim who fell down our back stairs), Pete Detra (who I blew up bugs with using syringes), and a few others. Even my sweet Adria was in that freshman class. My college roommate, Doug, I knew from camp and from singing together on the district Impact Team. By that time, the college had a separate dorm for girls and one for boys. As boring as that may sound, it was nice to hang out in the common lobby, after hours, in our underwear. Even so, even being good Nazarenes, pantie raids of the girls dorm were not uncommon.
I auditioned for and was accepted into the Singing Collegians, the college’s main choir. Very few freshmen make it into that choir. I credit the singing I did in school and with the Expectations for getting me there. The Collegians not only performed on campus, but traveled around the district to sing in churches and high schools. Every year during spring break we toured a section of the country. That year we traveled to Dallas, Tx for the Nazarene General Assembly—although I have no recollection of that trip.
There are photos of us on a tour in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Growing up in a small city and spending a lot of time on the farm, Cincinnati was the first big city I’d ever been to—back then, Columbus hadn’t yet come into its own. I loved it. Some local newspapers ran pieces on the choir being in town in which I’m shown and identified. Though I had many of my camp friends at Mt. Vernon, I made many new friends in the choir. I look through an old yearbook and can still name many of them by sight, even though we’ve had no contact for decades.
I was in a production of 1776…And All That. I don’t remember much about that experience. I believe it was staged at an old historic theater in Mt. Vernon. I only really mention it because there are some great photos in the Enerazan, the school’s yearbook—that’s Nazarene spelled backwards.
Pretty snazzy costumes, huh?! And and and, as I was writing this, I suddenly remembered that I thought I’d seen a script of the play in a box of memorabilia. Voila! Low and behold, I was the President of the United States…George Washington! How can I not remember that?!
I guess I must have been good.
T’WAS NOT A MIDLIFE CRISIS
My sophomore year at Mt. Vernon was problematic for me. Not for any reasons that had to do with school itself, or my friends there. I was dating a wonderful girl, Sue. But I was troubled, inside. I don’t think I’d yet started understanding I was gay—I barely knew what gay was. I don’t think I was even thinking about that, but maybe, in the back of my mind.
After the end of our freshman year, I drove Sue home to Maryland in her big ole Lincoln Continental to meet her family. Her dad worked for a school bus manufacturer—foreshadowing? She had a bunch of brothers and sisters. I was a hit with her family, her family was a hit with me. I know, somewhere, I have a photo of her laying on the lawn napping, holding a sprig of baby roses I’d picked for her.
I ran for class vice-president. Fred was running too. I met Fred through Doug. They went to the same church in Gove City, Ohio. Fred ran on his experiences holding student body offices in high school. I don’t remember what I ran on, but I did make a speech about other things being as important or even more important than experience. I won the election. Fred was like WTF—although that expression didn’t exist yet, especially for good Nazarenes. I was unsettled.
The turning point for me came when I read The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason “presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. It promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator-god. Most of Paine’s arguments had long been available to the educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to the masses. Paine’s work inspired and guided many free thinkers.”
I wasn’t becoming a deist, although I think I had a natural bent or attraction to the philosophy without even knowing what it was. I didn’t consider myself a free thinker, but had always been a bit more independent thinking than my siblings.
There were things about our church that bothered me. A lot of emphasis placed on external things that shouldn’t really matter. The sanctity of the sanctuary. The custodian/janitor’s wife was not allowed to wear pants while cleaning the sanctuary. She had to be in a dress. She was cleaning. And had to wear a dress.
The condemnation of long hair on guys or wearing jeans in church. Not allowed to dance. Not allowed to go to movies or the theater. Not allowed to watch TV on a Sunday. Not, not, not. I could never understand how that related to a relationship with God or salvation.
I was looking for a way out. A way out of all of that, even if subconsciously. I don’t remember searching for some rational way out, but somehow, I came across The Age of Reason. It became my guide to thinking through and working out what I did believe. It resulted in me dropping out of college.
Once I came to that conclusion, I called my dad and told him I wanted to leave school. He came over to spend a day with me. We went to lunch. We sat on a bench on campus and talked for, I don’t remember how long. I told him some, though not all, of what I was feeling and that I needed to go in a different direction. He said to me: “You’ve always been the biggest challenge to your mother and me. You’ve always had to find things out for yourself.”
The church encouraged us to seek the truth. To challenge what we were taught and believed and come to our own conclusions. That was all well and good, unless you came out on the other end with a different truth and conclusion than that of the church.
It was a turbulent time, breaking ties with school and friends. I had become so distant from Sue that she and my roommate, Doug, started dating. I didn’t begrudge them that. She was a great girl. He was a great guy.
Another justification for leaving school was deciding to go into Wildlife Management, a career course Mt. Vernon had no offerings for. After I left school, I enrolled at Ohio State. There was a branch campus in Marion. Easy peasy.
There was an introductory/orientation course that lasted just a couple of weeks. At the end of it, the class had a celebration pizza outing just down the road. A pitcher or two of beer was consumed. I’d never drank much beer before—beer offerings then, especially in Marion, were nothing like what’s available now, certainly no micro brews. I didn’t particularly like it, but I imbibed. A delivery came in, the driver was the father of one of my classmates. He paid for several more pitchers. By the time we broke up, I was definitely inebriated—not drunk, but pretty tipsy.
I drove home, made it safely. Parked my car in the garage. I was trying to decide how best to go into the house and what to do should I encounter mom or dad. Mom was in the kitchen. I told her I’d been out to pizza with the class and immediately went to the living room.
Our house was built around 1900. A great old house with lots of woodwork around the doors and windows and high ceilings. The living room had pocket doors. I quickly said hello to mom and ensconced myself in there, closing the doors and putting John Denver on the stereo—I was a huge JD fan. I needed time to come down off the beer. I was lightheaded. With the music it was almost like a hallucinogenic trance. I made a decision in that enlightened state. I needed to get out of Ohio. Thank you Mr. Denver.
Leave a Reply