Stories From My Past: Philosophy Class

"The $%#&@&$! Manifesto"

So, one sad semester in college at OSU, I had a Philosophy class. It filled in some general credit requirement, and my advisor said it wouldn't be too difficult of a class.

I am NOT a fan of philosophy. Not even a little bit. I hated this class even before I set foot in it. The professor was a smallish man, white hair, and he always had a cup of coffee with him. At the time, I was badly addicted to caffeine. Even so, I remember thinking, "Wow, this guy drinks a lot of coffee."

Day after day in that class, he would ramble on about ... well, philosophy, I guess. I couldn't understand more than about 6 words from him on any given day. I just don't speak that language, and I've never cared to. I didn't have any friends in that class. I would spend about half of my time in that class actively trying to understand what he was talking about, and the other half of my time was spent wishing that something interesting would happen. It wouldn't have been the first time, after all. ;)

One day, I came into class, and there was a different guy up at the front. I looked around... nobody else seemed to have any idea why there was a stranger in front of our class. "Is professor [name] OK?" "He's out for a while. Once class starts, I'll explain why."

What had happened? For the first time all semester, there was genuine interest from the students. And concern - the prof was an older gentleman, slightly frail. The buzzer sounds, and class began. The replacement started off with...

"So, many of you probably noticed that in your class last week, Professor [name] had started to exhibit some unusual behavior. I'm told he was speaking with incomplete sentences, and cursing frequently."

What? Really? I hadn't noticed. Was I *that* zoned out? As I looked around the room, I was seeing a few heads nodding, but more than a few students who were sharing my confusion.

As it turns out, my philosophy professor had a stroke. While in class. And almost *nobody* had noticed. This guy's philosophical ramblings were so incoherent normally, that when he honestly went into incoherence, you couldn't tell.

For the record, the prof was out for a week. When he came back, he didn't seem any different. He mumbled a couple of sentences about the experience, and then it was back to business as usual.

Needless to say, this class did nothing for my interest in Plato. I somehow managed a "B" (or was it a "C"?). Not bad given how little I paid attention in that class.