Although they may have once clamored to leave, college kids with
local roots shed nary a tear when their final exams were at last
behind them and they boarded a plane, train or automobile and
headed back to Hollister.
Although they may have once clamored to leave, college kids with local roots shed nary a tear when their final exams were at last behind them and they boarded a plane, train or automobile and headed back to Hollister.
“Coming home is pretty great,” said Maggie Ritchie, a second year fiction and poetry major at Columbia College in Chicago. “Everyone’s happy to see me because they have more time to miss me now, and less time to get sick of me … My mom and dad flipped out when I came home.”
The keen observer might notice a sudden influx of young adults at local coffee shops and grocery stores as students from all over the country return to spend the holidays with their families in Hollister.
“When I come home, the time I spend with my family is a lot more intimate than it has been in the past,” said Nick Davis, an architecture major at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. “When we get a chance to see each other, we make sure it’s quality time.”
Moreover, the holidays are a time to catch up with friends who have gone their own ways, many of whom have not seen each other for months.
“I’ve kept in touch with my real close friends from high school,” Davis said. “It seems that everyone is sort of growing up though. Everyone’s working, everyone’s got a car and bills to pay.”
Most college students have a four or five-week break between semesters which, while a substantial amount of time, does put stress on students looking to maximize how many people they’re able to see. Students also visit old haunts, work a few weeks at old jobs and visit neighboring towns they haven’t seen in a while.
“You’re always trying to cram your fun stuff and rebuilding these relationships you have with other people into a really short amount of time,” Ritchie said. “I try to visit Monterey or Casa De Fruta – places that you can’t imitate anywhere else. There’s a lot of traditions you have to cover in only about five weeks.”
But winter break isn’t just for students. For the parents who’ve been tending to an empty nest for months at a time, the return of their prodigal sons and daughters is a cause for celebration.
“She’s matured greatly while she’s been at college, and we’re closer than ever,” Diana Ritchie said of her daughter, Maggie. “We try to spend a lot of time together while she’s here, just cooking or shopping … We’re even trying to start a sewing project together.”
Many students are enjoying a different perspective of their hometown this winter. After spending a year or two on their own, students’ nostalgia grants Hollister a special kind of charm.
“In high school I was really frustrated with the lack of everything in Hollister – no art, no music, nothing,” Ritchie said. “In Chicago there’s so much art it’s insane… But the crime is insane, too, and there’s homeless people everywhere, and most of the time they’re insane. In Hollister at least I can walk around town at night and know the only people who will bother me are the cops.”
Others, however, are already eager to return to academia and the big city.
“Our parents always told us to go out, spend some time in the city and then we’d appreciate small town life,” Davis said. “And I hear that from some of my friends, but personally, I don’t feel that way. I’m looking forward to going back.”
Come January, it’s almost certain that students will look forward to tackling another semester but expect some tears as well.
“Hollister seemed like a vacuum when I was in high school,” Ritchie said. “But it’s still different from any other place in the world. It’s home.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or ds****@fr***********.com
