Mission 100 Days: I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em

By: Jon Dusza, Managing Editor

If I had written something like this during my senior year of high school, I would have suggested to readers: if you have serious reservations about something, do not do it, it is not worth it. I am going to meander a bit, but please bear with me. I assure you that my message has changed in my four years of college.

As a whole, I am incredibly lucky to be able to say that my high school experience was a happy one, with a good group of people, friends and family who I could count on. At the beginning of junior year, I told myself that I would expand my horizons and really try to break out of my comfort zone. My efforts started off well, but COVID put them on hold. Then, during the pandemic and after, seemingly every time I put myself “out there” it completely blew up in my face. I will recount one story that is somewhat humorous and representative. In short, a miserable prom night (I was dragged to prom in the first place, I did not want to go) ended with me literally flat on my back in my friend’s backyard with dozens of people laughing at me. I had slipped on a rock and found myself in the air, legs fully extended, both feet kicking in the air like I was in a cartoon, and I fell. It was a funny moment, I laughed as well. But the lesson was clear. “You know what?” I thought to myself, “why do I even bother?” I went home and was in bed by 11:30.

The rest of senior summer was a good one: luckily I avoided injury from my prom night faux pas. But I remembered that lesson and brought it with me my freshman year at Canisius. During orientation lunch, after the people whose table I sat down at all got up and moved tables, leaving me alone (which happily remains one of the few negative interactions I have had at this school), I resolved to leave orientation. It was quite an embarrassing moment and was not a great beginning to my college career, but what else was I to expect? Of course orientation would be awful, did I not remember the lessons of the previous year?

One Thursday evening during the fall semester of my freshman year, I got a text from the then news editor of this publication, Natalie Faas, asking me if I would like to come to The Griffin office that night to see how publication went. Though I had been writing some short news stories to be published in The Griffin, I said no, maybe some other time. A couple of similar interactions later and I finally relented. To my horror, then Editor-in-Chief Aidan Joly asked me if I was free on Thursday nights and if I would be interested in joining The Griffin staff as assistant news editor. I can still remember my heart rate increasing, my consciousness desperately searching through the filing cabinets in my mind for any excuse and, not finding anything that was keeping me busy on Thursday evenings, I mumbled sheepishly: “I think so.” Guilted into a weekly commitment with this paper, I was once again agreeing to do something that I was not excited about doing. Surely it would be a disaster again.

Well, joining The Griffin is my favorite thing I have done in my entire life. I could fill an entire edition’s worth with anecdotes, but I will use just one. It was still my freshman year, and I was walking back to Lyons Hall where my car was parked after a hectic work night at The Griffin. As I passed by the doors of Lyons, I came to the realization that I, a terribly shy commuter who spent three hours a day on campus max, who sat in the back corner of each of my classes, had by some miracle found college friends. I was truly prepared to go through four years of school with my head down minding my own business, the sporadic return of my childhood friends during breaks were enough to satisfy my social appetite. But by reluctantly joining The Griffin staff, I stumbled into a group of friends, people who have been some of the best friends I have ever had.

Through The Griffin, I felt at home on this campus, even though I do not live here – a feeling which I am lucky to have. Through The Griffin, I flew for the first time, and through those same trips that required said flights, I had the most enjoyable travel experiences of my life. Through The Griffin, I met Steve from “Blue’s Clues,” a childhood hero. What?!

Early my sophomore year, I got an email from Dr. Bruce Dierenfield, who asked me, per recommendation of former Griffin Managing Editor Pat Healy, if I would be interested in helping him do research for a book he was writing about a civil rights activist. As I did with The Griffin, reluctantly, I said I would. Working with Dr. Dierenfield over the last three years – on his book project and on my thesis – has been an experience that, more than being enjoyable, has taught me more about life, and how to deal with myself and others more than anyone could possibly hope for. It is a shame that not every college student can have a relationship with faculty as great as Dr. Dierenfield like I have, and the fact that I do is one of the luckiest breaks I have had at Canisius.

This was 2022. I came to a bit of a revelation on New Year’s Eve of that year. I was walking to a friend’s house to ring in the New Year, and I used that walk as a time for reflection on the year that was, seeing as it would likely be the last quiet moments I would have in 2022, the first full year of my college experience. I thought about where I was, and who I was at the beginning of the year, and was shocked to realize that I had grown a great deal as a person. 

For Christmas that year, Santa Claus gave me a book called Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, a manifesto of speeches from George Washington Plunkitt, one of the most corrupt politicians in American history. Plunkitt’s most famous quote came when he was defending his stealing of millions of taxpayer dollars: “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.” That quote really resonated with me as words which described my successful first full year of college.

College is full of opportunities: opportunities to make friends, to improve your resume and yourself, to scratch off bucket list items. What makes college worthwhile is seeing those opportunities and taking them. The key is to go about looking for those opportunities, and not expecting them to go wrong, as I thought they would at the end of high school, but expecting the best, for that is where the motivation to take those opportunities comes from. In college, I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em, and as a result, I have grown at Canisius in ways that I could never have imagined.

No personal growth happens by oneself, and there are far too many people to thank personally for making my college experience a shockingly wonderful one, but here are a few. First of all, my parents and brother and sister (who goes here, hello Katie). I live at home, so I see them every day. The conversations, therapy, advice, love and joy that they give are to me, (not exaggerating here) the best things in the whole world. I love them more than I can fit in the ten pages of this edition (maybe fourteen would do).

Writing for this paper is the most enjoyable thing I have done in school. For that, I must thank The Griffin’s fearless Editor-in-Chief Ava C. Green. One thing I have learned is that most people – to some extent or another, myself included – fake it till they make it, and there is nothing wrong with that. But that description does not fit Ava Green as editor-in-chief. I have met nobody who is better at what they do than she is, and if anybody has ever gotten any enjoyment out of this paper, Ava Green deserves a great deal of credit for it. And she is a great friend.

Also the rest of The Griffin staff. The Griffin is my “thing,” it is what I spend most of my time at school doing, and it is the core of my social life. I do not want to leave anyone out, so I will not name names, but to literally everyone who has been on The Griffin staff or associated with it: thank you.

The same goes for the professors I have had. I will name a few here who I will remember especially fondly; Dr. Sriram, Professor Kryder, Professor Higgins, Professor Klump, Dr. Chambers; but I extend my deepest thanks to all of the professors I have had. They have all been incredible.

Also thanks to Josh Allen and Aaron Judge for making two childhood dreams come true: Allen for making the Bills a Super Bowl contender and Judge for hitting 62 home runs in a season.

Above all, since this is my written goodbye to Canisius, I thank most deeply the Canisius community as a whole. It is cliche to say, but I thank everybody here. I realize that I am using the words “everybody” and “all” and “best ______ of my life” to describe a lot of things in this article, but I do not think I am exaggerating. Canisius is a truly special place – there is just something about it – and I attribute it to the people at Canisius. My Canisius alumni parents, who told me throughout my youth that Canisius has a certain good vibe to it, were completely right, and I will be forever grateful that I took up their advice. And so to you, dear reader, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.