In actual college age, I am 86 with a fake hip and a failing ticker.

Graduation is an estimated two months away, so in between naps and servings of orange Jell-O, I spend my old age reflecting. My one piece of advice to the younger generation of SLU today: Get a car.

Some people turn to me for advice, sensing because I have spent time at two Jesuit, inner-city colleges, I could be considered a resource.

One of the most popular questions that I get from the kids is, “Where do you go when it is the middle of midterms, you only have $3 in your pocket, and you’re hungry?” I usually chuckle and tell them the following story.

There’s a place, just beyond Walgreens, over the bridge with all the bright round lights, just this side of Uncle Bill’s. As soon as you walk into the Courtesy Drive-In, or its sister establishment, the Courtesy Diner, you’re in a different world.

There’s no Kevin Tammy here. As we sit down, you fully understand where people get the term “greasy spoon.”

As my companions and I grab the ancient, laminated menus, the word that catches me eye is “Slinger.” Eggs, hash browns, hamburger and chili, all mixed together into one big pile of protein and cholesterol, reminding people of nuked cat food.

But what that menu item tells me is this: I am a true, blue diner. I smile and listen to the change jingle in my pocket.

The overhead music begins without warning. We are all sort of shocked. I look at the pyramid-shaped jukebox and decide that it has nothing to do with the noise.

We hear some 50s era big band song. It only adds to the effect of having gone back in time.

The menu causes this feeling to become stronger. A burger for $1.30, and Coke for coins. The calendar isn’t even from this century. Our bill will barely buy one SGA campaign stake sign.

As I look at the counter, two blue-collar workers have plopped down. One of them only stays seated for a couple of seconds before he is fumbling with everything he can find.

His hands, hair and arms are a powder pale, suggesting that he worked with dry wall or asbestos, or flour. Based on his severely stained painter’s pants, with a rip down the back that shows his overly worn long underwear, he doesn’t work with food.

While he is fiddling with a newspaper searching for a story that was never written, his partner, looking equally grungy, wearing overalls stained with more shades of brown than I could describe, shocks me and my companions by yanking out a buzzing cell phone.

“Everybody has a cell,” one of my companion’s comments, silently noting that that was probably the last thing we would imagine coming out of his pockets.

Both men seem to be regulars. “It’s just like the ocean, under the moon.” The song turns to a duet between Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana.

One guy yells at the lunch-lady waitress, “Do you have a cha-hooa-hooa on your back?”

“A what?” his friend inquires.”

“A cha-hooa-hooa.”

The waitress, only half amused, turns and motions vaguely to the dog on her back that looks like it has OD’d on acid and meth simultaneously. “It’s a Chihuahua.”

My female friends are staring nervously at the bullet holes that provide a BB-size portal to Kingshighway.

The waitress then appears and sits down. My friend chuckles and says, “Well, that works.”

The waitress says, “Of course it does, I just did it. Now who wants what?”

As she takes each order it appears that we are slowly becoming the most annoying people on earth, despite the fact that we are giving only simply orders.

“MY NAME IS KIIIIIIIIIIIDDDDD!” The music changes to the digitally remastered, and mass-produced anger associated with Kid Rock’s music.

A 50-something man, wearing a worn, off-white tuxedo shirt and frayed black pants approaches our table, noticing my Sigma Phi Epsilon T-shirt. “Where are you a Sig Ep?”

We discuss SLU and the size of our chapter and our duration. His explanation of his interest is included in the statement, “Southwest Missouri State, `59,” like he is telling which army post he was at.

We have an instant bond, and he wishes me the best of luck in life and calls me brother.

As the song switches to Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” I look around the restaurant. The counter customers includes a guy I could only describe as “my cousin Vinny” and three high schoolers dressed like they are coming from a Prom with the theme “Romantic Night of the Living Dead.”

I sit back and take a deep breath of cigarette- poisoned air.

This is life in the city.

I can go back to my neighborhood, where going out at night involves going to McDonald’s and hanging out amongst the 30,000 something cars all provided to their 16-year-old drivers by their 40-something parents.

We can sit amongst our statues and manicured grass lawns and talk about economics, politics, philosophy and business.

But when it comes down to learning about the lives that those topics affect, the lessons contained in eating at Courtesy carry more weight than most classroom lectures.

Freshmen, these are the classes you need to take. Life isn’t all cloth napkins and butt- kissing servers handing you $40 checks. So get your car. Get out in this city. Learn about life. It is these opportunities that make living in the city not a curse, but one great experience.

You are paying $20,000 to be here. Don’t waste it. Find it. Watch it. Enjoy it.