View across the bay from the commons area in GGBTS’ classroom building. Photo Credit: Alex Leung.

I studied for a Masters degree at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, California, from 1991 to 1994. While there, I collected a range of memories that bubble up in my head from time to time. Here are a few of those.

The whirr of windshield wipers as beads of water streak around the windshield.
Perpetually damp clothes in the winter.
The verdant smell of the earth once you are driving in the nearby woods.
The church camp layout of the Baptist seminary’s inornate boxy, brownish buildings.
The large green tree-encircled soccer field at the campus entrance.
The perpetual hum of traffic west of campus where 101 rolls through Mill Valley.
Moist and cool air.
Morning fogs hugging the earth.
White speckles dancing on the water in the bay.
Deer chewing on grass in the surrounding wooded rolls.
Gray cloudy skies.
Periodic drives through the giant trees and across the headlands leaning toward the sea out to Stinson Beach on Highway 1.
Bland architecture, wood paneling and dull white walls.
The firehouse up the incline outside the dorm room window.
The smells of sour kimchi and pungent coffee filling the dorm hallway.
The sound of toilets flushing from the central communal bathroom in the men’s dorm.
My first foray into personal computing with my Apple Mac LC and a Stylewriter printer.
Bibles and backpacks and T-shirts and jeans and unkempt hair.
The wall of brassy mailbox doors in the main classroom building where you hoped for a letter or held on for a paycheck when you worked for the school.
The quiet hum of students whispering across the good-sized, stack-sprinkled library.
Yardwork in Tiburon and Sausalito; manning the campus entrance shack in the evenings; painting residences in San Francisco; “groundskeeping” at the Strawberry Point Apartments.
Salvation, sin- and survival.
Dr. Aiken’s archaeology as a permanent feature in the library.
The walking ridge between the cafeteria and the classroom buildings.
Stale air and solemnity in spring classrooms.
Dr. Stricker’s boyish appearance, sagacious wisdom, and gesticulative hand motions; Aiken’s stern and all-seeing eyes; Shouse’s full, blonde head of hair, sanguine smile, and twinkling eyes; Honeycutt’s unbridled and enthusiastic church history lectures.
Rare escapes into the city.
Studying in the library in the castle at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Bonhoeffer and Brunner; Fowler and Hauerwas; Adler’s “How to Read a Book”.
Hebrew translations in Amos and Isqiah.
Surveys of Acts and Romans.

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Photo Credit: Alex Leung via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.