Misfits, Freaks and Derelicts

We all have to start somewhere.

Every adventure, every journey, every book, every job, every meal, every movie, every walk, has to begin with something.

My college experience began in the basement of a science building. I mean, some things happened before the basement of the science building. I had already moved in, met a few people, learned a little bit about the campus... but the basement of the science building is where everything really started.

Every freshman at Hiram College is required to take a freshman colloquium. These classes are a meld of reading and writing and orientation and learning basic research skills and getting acclimated to college life. They are about a wide variety of topics; I had friends who took classes about cooking, and about mobsters in the 50’s. About the 2012 election, and about the idea of happiness. My class was called ‘Misfits, Freaks and Derelicts.’

The classes are designed to be small. Mine was about 15 people, and to say that we bonded is an understatement. The thing about a class called ‘Misfits, Freaks and Derelicts’ is that it’s gonna draw a certain kind of weirdo. So there we were. 15 strange strangers, in an oddly shaped classroom, at the end of a dark hallway in the basement of the science building.

The class was supposed to be about the people who didn’t quite fit the molds society attempted to set for them. We learned about The Venus Hottentot and how sexuality can shape in harmful and helpful ways. We learned about imperialism and feminism and mysticism and everything in between. We read The Elephant Man and discussed ability and disability and appearance and prejudice. We read Oscar Wilde and discussed what it meant to be obscene. We read plays and studied paintings and wrote paper after paper after paper.

And yes, the academics were important, but that’s not where my real Misfit memories lie.

When I think about Misfits I think about the group study session on the top floor of the library where we laughed so hard that a group of football players came over to ask us to be quiet. I think about our idea to start a crime family, and burn down the house where our exam was being kept, so none of us would have to take it. I think about the retort, after that idea was thrown on the table, that the organized crime was best left to the baking class and the football players.

I think about the time we made a poster for a professor that had the word “fuck” on it no less then 20 times. We wrote it in paint and in marker, and even using sponges. The poster had all kinds of stupid and funny quotes from class all over it, and our handprints. It looked like a happy and fucked up hurricane, which really described us as a group fairly perfectly. Last I heard, the poster is still hanging on his wall.

We made shirts, and on the back we put an aspect of our identity that other’s shamed but we wanted to find the pride in. We spent a lot of time building each other up. We spent a lot of time being a support system. We spent a lot of time making fun of each other in the way that only people who know each other really well and already have a foundation of love and respect can.

I’m so grateful that I ended up in ‘Misfits, Freaks and Derelicts.’ That group of weirdos made me feel at home, the way that nothing else could. That support system meant so much to me—and to all of us—that we couldn’t really let it go. Even after the semester ended we all met up for movie nights.

It’s a special thing to find people who are at the same place in life as you are. Who are looking for the same things. Need the same love, the same support. Something clicked in that classroom, and I’m so glad it did.