You caught me at a weak moment. Now turn away until I finish weeping.
It is the feeling of independence and fear when your parents leave on your first day. It is getting lost on your first few days of class. It is learning how to make friends all over again. It is seeing those friends become family. It is hall sports in Johnstone. It is floor parties in the high rises. It is your first trip onto Bowman on a warm, sunny day. It is your first college romance. It is sweating in the Shoeboxes during most any month aside from January. It is the sound of Tillman on every quarter hour. It is your freshman year. It is the year you realize you.re no longer a freshman. It is when you realize you finally know more than half of the Clemson campus. It is learning that you don.t have to study as much as you thought. It is figuring out that beer is one friend who is always there. It is joining your first club/intramural team. It is having fun on your team as you lose a .close one. 18-2. It is realizing that you feel an obligation to support your Tigers. It is planning all your weekend activities around the football game. It is your sophomore year. It is realizing there are other sports aside from football and basketball. It is TD.s and triple T.s on a Thursday night. It is having friends that will gladly get out of bed and drive you home at 3:00 a.m. It is finding ways to create your own identity. It is the start of your .real. curriculum. It is the first time you questioned your major. It is realizing that coffee with crushed Vivarin mixed in is your best friend. It is lake Hartwell on a cloudless Saturday afternoon. It is finding someone with a boat to enjoy those afternoons. It is discovering the Botanical Gardens. It is carving your name and year in fresh concrete. It is realizing on your last day of class that you only have one more to go. It is your junior year. It is looking back and laughing at yourself when you were a freshman. It is looking back and asking yourself where four years went. It is realizing that the past four years were the greatest in your life. It is the sweat on your brow as you finish your biggest project ever. It is being able to walk in front of the Calhoun house. It is being able to walk in front of the statue of Thomas Clemson. It is knowing every square inch of campus while blindfolded. It is walking down the aisle. It is shaking the president.s hand. It is seeing your name on that piece of parchment. It is taking one last walk alone through campus as a student. It is your senior year. It is coming back for the first time in years. It is seeing Tillman again for the first time. It is noticing the statue in front of Mell and having it mean something. It is watching the demolition of Johnstone. It is watching it grow younger as you grow older. It is giving anything you can because you think of it as your child. It is knowing that your best friends who are standing beside you were your neighbors. It is looking into your old classrooms and sitting in your old seats. It is standing on the hill for the first time in years. It is a picnic out at Twin Lakes. It is seeing your name that you carved during your junior year in the same place. It is knowing that after you are gone, your children and friends were influenced by things you learned here. It is knowing that it will be here when your children think the same thing you are thinking right now. It is Clemson. It is more to you than anyone will ever know.