Samuel T. Gladding - Becoming a Counselor

My maternal grandfather, who was born 20 years after the end of the Civil War, was a Virginian. He graduated from the University of Richmond, but instead of staying in the South where he would have been safe and welcomed, he finished his theological education at Colgate-Rochester Divinity School and Columbia University. Going north was a bold move because feelings between the North and South were still tense when he went. However, he thought he would be a better person and a more effective minister if he left his region for a while and got to understand other people and ways of life.

After I graduated from Wake Forest University, I too went north and attended Yale Divinity School. I felt that if my grandfather could do it in a time of tension, I could do it in a time of relative calm. I did not end up becoming a minister or saving anyone’s life in a dramatic way. However, getting outside my region helped me to become a more understanding person and relate to other people better. I owe a debt to my grandfather for giving me the courage to go beyond the safety of the world in which I grew up and get out of my comfort zone.

was not able to get a job between graduating from high school I and going to college. Although I would usually play tennis in the afternoon and go out with friends at night, my mornings were free, and after a few days they were boring. Thus, I looked for something to do. I found the something in a typewriter my parents had bought me. I could not type. In the early 1960s, keyboarding was for girls so they could get a job as a secretary, if needed.

I found a book on typing around our house that had belonged to my mother when she was an adolescent. One morning I put my index fingers on the “G” and the “H” in the second row of letters and expanded from there as I followed the instructions on how to type. It became a postbreakfast ritual. By the end of the summer, I could type three pages an hour if I kept my eyes on the keys. It was not much, but it was further than I had been. Months later it saved me the expense of having someone type my college papers. Unemployment and discipline paid rich dividends.

1 What were your strategies for doing well in middle school and high school? How well did they succeed?

2 What social issues did you observe as an adolescent that you wanted to change? What have you done about these issues since you have become an adult?

3 How has your family’s history made an impact on you for better or worse? How does your family’s history still have an impact on you today?

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Bittersweet

In the cool grey dawn of early September,I place the final suitcase into my Mustangand silently say “good-bye”to the quiet green beauty of North Carolina.Hesitantly, I head forthe blue ocean-lined coast of Connecticutbound for a new position and the unknown.Traveling with me are a Sheltie named Eliand the still fresh memories of yesterday.…Moving in life is bittersweetlike giving up friends and fears.The taste is like smooth, orange, fall persimmons,deceptively delicious but tart.

© 1982, Samuel T. Gladding

Young adulthood is a time of establishing an identity. It is a time of finding what you want to do as an adult. Sometimes the choices are obvious, such as choosing a musical career if your talents lie in music. At other times, deciding what to do as an adult is much harder, and young adults agonize about choices and what to do next. In such cases they may take a gap year, join the military, seek out an apprenticeship, or simply drift. Choosing something permanent to do with one’s life is not easy, for once an individual starts a journey into the future, it is hard to change it, and the impact on personal well-being grows exponentially with each year that passes.

The vignettes in this section are about decisions, such as going to college, being involved in activities, accepting decisions, making amends, and starting something new. The choices of young adulthood are about coming of age and maturing.

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I did not start college at Wake Forest University, where I finished my undergraduate degree. Rather, I started at Stetson University and then transferred there. I went to Stetson because it was a small Baptist college and I planned to be a minister. I had not visited, but the pictures looked good. However, I soon learned that the pictures did not tell the story.

Instead of being vibrant and dynamic, campus life at Stetson in the early 1960s was as placid as a lake. Besides the campus flicks on Friday or Saturday nights, there was not a lot to do as a first-year student if you were not in a fraternity or sorority. Realizing this fact, I decided I would go Greek. However, the Greeks decided otherwise. I had been popular in high school, so I had some confidence when I went out to rush. There were eight fraternities with about 40 to 50 guys in each. Thus, I thought, “No problem.” I should have thought again.

The first time I rushed was in the fall semester of my first year. I did not receive an invitation back to any of the houses, let alone a bid to join one of the groups. I was amazed, shocked, and more than disappointed. Determined, I rushed two more times: once in the spring semester of my first year and then again in the fall semester of my sophomore year. History repeated itself. Ouch! I did not understand why.

It did not occur to me until years later that I may have lacked “packaging,” that is, height. At 5 feet 2 inches, I was not of average height, and for men in fraternities then being of average height was the first step in having your ticket punched to join. Thus, my stature ruled me out from being a part of the Greek system. The pictures of the groups in the yearbooks of the time seem to back up my hypothesis . . . although let’s face it, maybe I had bad breath!

I realize through the experience how important an environment is in thriving. Although Greeks, geeks, and even a few freaks did well at Stetson, misfits did not, and I was a misfit. I blamed myself initially but carried on in my family’s tradition of keeping a stiff upper lip. I made my grades, wrote for the student newspaper, and worked on a committee of the Student Union. Outside of these activities, I had a less than exciting and desirable college life. I was in a social desert. Thus, I decided to transfer because it was too painful being in such an atmosphere. I had an opportunity to move on.

Diversity and openness matter. They create options. I wish for the place and time I began college that there had been Romans!

When I was 18, as is true with many male adolescents, I was infatuated with a young woman and yet scared to death to ask her for a date. Her name was June and she was 16 (going on 17). I found her warm name and personality inviting. Best of all, she lived just a couple blocks from my parents’ house. When I went off to college, we exchanged letters and she took the initiative and asked me to the Snow Ball, a wonderfully exciting dance in December that was completely misnamed because we lived in Georgia. I enthusiastically accepted.

On the night of the grand occasion, I picked her up, and after chatting with her folks for a few minutes we made our way to the car. I could tell that romance, rather than any frozen precipitation, was in the air. Her eyes were as dilated as mine, which was probably the reason for what happened next.

I opened the car door for June, and after she slipped in gracefully I closed the door behind her with a flare and quickly, yet lightly, walked around to my side of the car (knowing I was on the street where she lived). After getting in, I looked over at her, expecting romantic glances and maybe even a kiss, but to my astonishment she was crying.