MY STUDENT VISA

APRIL 3, 2025 – While the investor world along with major stock indices seemed to be in a free fall today, I happily stuck my head in the sand—figuratively speaking. After all, I was driving and wouldn’t have been able to travel far with sand in my eyes.

My first stop was the Asian Foods store on Snelling Avenue about a mile and a half from Falcon Heights. The establishment is run by Koreans and caters to Koreans, so naturally, it purveys mostly items appealing to the Korean palate—that is, pickled root vegetables, industrial gauge quantities of kimchee, proteins of the sea, including octopus that crawls even after its dead, and numerous varieties of seaweed. I went for the seaweed.

An older Korean couple, a single older Korean man, and the Korean woman behind the counter were carrying on a few feet away from the seaweed aisle. They were laughing their head off about something, and I found their state of levity so uplifting, I inspected the seaweed packaging far longer than was necessary. Once the three customers had reached the outer limits of humor and dispersed, I approached the small counter and presented my choice of seaweed. The cashier greeted me with a smile, accepted my payment and thanked me in English. I exited the store with a month’s supply of seaweed and enough good cheer to carry me through the rest of the day.

I continued onward, heading for the Masonic Cancer Center on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota. Since my initial appointment there with the transplant research doctor on February 21, 2022, I’d driven or been driven to the Center well over 100 times. I know the neighborhood well. But today, my purpose was non-medical. I headed to the Center simply because I’m familiar with the street parking niches, vastly preferable over the institutional parking alternative, namely, what I call, “The Franz Kafka Memorial Parking Ramp,” given the contorted route to the exit, whether you’ve parked right next to it or four levels away.

My objective was the Coffman Union, where at the Student Services desk I needed to obtain a student card, which with the embedded code, Abracadabra, open Sesame! would grant me access to the classroom building where Professor Stavrou delivers his weekly 2 ½ – hour lecture on Russian history. To this point in the course, my good friend and fellow student, Matt, has been the door opener, but when he informed me last Monday that he wouldn’t be able to attend next Monday, out of necessity I was motivated to obtain my own access card.

It had been years, probably decades since I’d last entered Coffman Union. My first time there was when I was in second or third grade. I’m not sure what the occasion was, but I do know that it was on a Saturday in the fall and that I was accompanied by my parents and grandparents and my little sister. My grandparents lived on the Dinkytown side of the sprawling university campus and my sisters and I took violin lessons at a studio not far from our grandparents’ immediate neighborhood. I don’t remember my sisters being on hand, and it’s probably because they were at their lessons. A lecture of some sort, perhaps, or some other modest event had attracted the interest of the grown-ups, so there they were; there I was.

I remember distinctly that we occupied for a time a student lounge, maybe to wait for the time of the event to draw closer or to partake in a little snack afterward. In any event, what made the deepest impression on me were the students who wandered in and out of the lounge, who sat down nearby, piled their books and notebooks, and visited with one another, or put their noses into their reading material, turning pages with a finger and thumb of one hand, and holding a coffee cup by the finger and thumb of the other. I was intrigued by the volume of their apparent homework and the intensity of their faces. And I remember my mother watching me and saying, “Someday you’ll go to college and have to study hard too.”

Her simple informational statement worried me. When the day arrived, would I be ready for college? Would I be up to the task of reading books without illustrations?

My other memory of Coffman Union, occurring years later, left me traumatized by humiliation—at least for a time. It was in August before my last year of high school I believe. My sister Elsa had assembled a recital program and reserved the central performing space at Kaufman as the venue. She was studying at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, and she was well on her way to becoming a top-flight concert violinist. She had invited two close associates from Curtis, a pianist and a horn-player, to join her on the program, which included the popular Brahms Horn Trio.

As I recall, a sizable crowd assembled for the performance. Arriving early, of course, our family sat in the front row, aisle-right. I was tremendously proud of Elsa. Her playing was always at a sublime level, and from the time we were young kids, I could never remember hearing her play in public when I was the least bit nervous about her falling short of perfection. And I knew how hard she worked. She deserved to be the best that her natural talent allowed.

When she introduced her accomplished Curtis friends to me and mentioned that I “played violin too,” I was immensely flattered—and relieved that there was no need or occasion for them to hear me “play,” for no doubt my “playing” would have reduced their impression-by-association with my sister the real violinist.

At the appointed hour, the musical display got under way. Apart from the horn trio, I don’t remember what was on the program, except that all the pieces were at the challenging end of the spectrum of classical masterpieces.

Having dressed up for the event, I had added incentive to otherwise appear more sophisticated musically than I actually was. Truth be told, I wasn’t exactly sure how to accomplish that apart from . . . sitting perfectly still and silent, keeping my eyes trained on the musicians, and above all, not dozing off. But far more important than these basic skills was not applauding between movements—I knew this from having attended countless concerts since I was a young kid.

This most critical rule of musical sophistication, however, has two sub-rules: First, keep careful track of the movements, and second, in case you screw up on the first sub-rule, NEVER, EVER be the first to applaud.

At the subject recital there inside Coffman Union, I openly but unintentionally defied both parts of this all-important law of the concert. At the close of what turned out to be the third, not the fourth, movement of a sonata, I launched the loudest, strongest, heartiest applause I could possibly unleash. To my unparalleled humiliation, it doubled as the biggest solo of my career. I felt my neck and face grow so red hot, I thought my collar would be set ablaze. Sweat poured as from a water hose from my armpits down the sides of my rib cage. My blazer suddenly felt like a winter parka in the tropics.

I dared not draw any further attention to myself as I contemplated my next move. With my head perfectly still, I shifted my eyes back and forth to survey my closest exit option. As I feared, there was none to either side. The only ones must be in back, I concluded—behind the seating, but of course, I was sitting at the very front of the seating. This meant I’d have to crawl, run, become invisible, slither along the side, then dash out the back exit.

The next memory I have was being outside walking down the sidewalk behind the union. I figured the recital had another half hour to it, followed by the reception. It would be an hour and a half before I could show my face to anyone attending or performing in the recital. With my tie stuffed inside my blazer sleeves and the blazer draped over my shoulder, I must’ve plodded four miles round trip before summoning the courage to re-enter Coffman Union. The biggest lesson learned from that humiliating experience was that as far as I knew, my breech of concert etiquette was no worse than a short, one-time sneeze into a tissue between movements of a sonata. That fair conclusion, however, wasn’t fully reached for all too long.

Today as I entered Coffman, I heard a Mozart sonatina emanating from a piano close by but out of sight. I peeked around one pillar, then another. Behind a grand piano tucked in a corner I espied a student, playing away. She was still at it a half hour later when I exited the building. Her touch was too heavy for my musical taste, but it was short of pounding, and she had achieved a level of convincing proficiency. Bully for her, I thought.

The piano music prompted me to recall with amusement my now diminished humiliation, my untimely applause between movements all those many years ago.

I immediately felt young and at home in the space of the student union. The university colors, the gold and maroon, were tastefully applied throughout the campus headquarters for students of all stripes. I’d never given the colors much though before, but today I told myself how much I liked them, especially the bright, fresh versions on display.

I easily found my way to “Student Card Services,” and was afforded efficient and proficient accommodation. The student handling my request was perfectly cheerful, and I convinced myself that he was speaking to me as a student peer, not as he would address his own grandfather.

In under five minutes my new student card was in hand. I thanked the student worker behind the window, told him I was “happy to be back in college,” and mentioned le tour de force who was my professor. The student was an economics major but expressed a keen interest in history, which was a perfect springboard to a 10-minute conversation about perspective, especially in dynamic times such as the present. When more “business” appeared behind me, I quickly acknowledged it and said how much I’d enjoyed our talk; how much faith he gave me in the future. He reached out to shake my hand, and in parting I told him, “Stay positive!” Earlier he’d expressed concern about the state of the country. I’d been frank enough about my own concerns but also expressed my faith in the resilience of our species. He had read enough history to agree with me.

Before departing the union, I stopped at the basement bookstore. To reach the actual books, I had to navigate through a vast sea of gold and maroon—clothing, mostly, sporting the school colors and the still laughable mascot, Goldy the Golden . . . [rodent]. Once I reached the books, I surveyed the current events section and was pleased to see on prominent display, Timothy Snyder’s compact book, On Tyranny, and books akin to it warning against fascism. I also checked the Russian History corner, of course, and for the time being, at least, resisted the temptation to add to my existing collection.

Before my parking meter time ran out, I strolled through the various sitting areas of the main floor of the union, simply for the opportunity to pretend for a minute or two, that I was an undergraduate again. As I did so, I observed the many students milling about while the one at the grand piano branched off from Mozart to what I guessed was something French—Poulenc or Fauré perhaps. I was impressed how the students carried themselves. They looked serious and purposeful. I was hugely curious about them—who were they, what they were studying, how they viewed the world, how they assessed their individual prospects and those of the country, of the world.

Only after I was well on my way down Washington Avenue toward my car did I note to myself that a super-majority of the students I’d observed in Kaufman Union qualified in appearance as “people of color.” I found satisfaction in this realization, for it reflected a broader, more interesting variety of backgrounds and perspectives than what had prevailed among the student body at the time of my first memory of Coffman Union over six decades ago—when the now inimitable 91-year-old American Professor Theofanis Stavrou was a young Greek Cypriot assistant professor, a freshly minted PhD just getting established as a recognized scholar of Russian and Byzantium history.

Oh, how I wanted to sit down and chat with these young people to get their take on life and the world. Fortunately, I suppose for my own sake, I didn’t make a fool of myself—imagine, a geezer walking around saying, “Excuse me, can I visit with you about stuff for a couple of minutes?” It would take only a couple more minutes for someone to summon security.

I conjured up a mental image of a slightly more legitimate though no less quirky approach, such as setting up a little booth next to some of the sundry tables I’d seen inside Coffman, staffed by volunteer recruiters for various academic and charitable groups on campus. “Gab with a Geezer!” my banner would read, with a sub-line, “He wants to know what you think of the world as it now spins.” I’d have a list of questions, including, “What’s your major and why?” “America in this December and in 2030 and 2050: Are you an optimist or a pessimist and why?” “What do you envision yourself doing five years from now? Ten? Thirty?” “If you could live and work in another country for a year, which would it be and why?” “What else do you want to tell me about your perspective on the country, the world?”

I’d faithfully record their responses, I thought, then package and publish them.

Fifteen minutes later I pulled into our driveway. If in reality I reside in geezerhood, my brief foray into studenthood left me feeling younger if not looking so. Maybe the seaweed will improve my appearance and sense of humor. If it does, maybe with fondness I can look back on today as my personal “Liberation Day,” dismissing what Trump did to investment portfolios.

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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson