I was moving to Lawrence, Kansas to study at KU. I took a flight from San Francisco to Kansas City, which arrived around 2 AM local time. I rented a car and drove to Lawrence (about 40 miles). I stopped at a Denny’s to get a bite to eat. There were only a few other customers there, but as I waited for my meal a bunch of people came in. Apparently they were all also students.
Partway through the meal, the manager turned off the lights. I asked what was going on, and was told that the students needed to sleep because their first classes started early in the morning. I had been planning to find a hotel room, but I decided that if other students were going to sleep there, I might as well too.
I was concerned about starting school, because the classes at KU started two weeks before my classes in California ended, so I was going to miss some of each.
My first day there, I attended a lecture given by Leó Szilárd, one of the physicists who developed the atomic bomb. At the conclusion of the lecture he was given an award and a large check (literally; one of those giant reproductions several feet on a side).
Afterward I was talking with Dr. Szilárd as we walked on campus, and we got caught up in a mob dancing in the street. They were apparently surrounding some famous singer, who had also received an award that day. Dr. Szilárd was still carrying the giant check, and some of the people got the idea that the check belonged to the singer and that he was trying to steal it. They tried to take it away from him, and called the police.