The Masked Stork

Launching a Cult of Apathy, a student found few passionate followers.

NEARLY 20 YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THE Masked Stork called on Dartmouth students to join him in the Cult of Apathy. Donning a red cape and concealing his identity behind a wool ski mask, the Stork claimed that the god Howara, Giver of Truth, had come to him in an erotic dream over Homecoming Weekend and commanded that he preach to his fellow students about the joy to be found in perfect apathy. Heeding Howara's call to service, the Masked Stork rode his rusting five-speed bicycle through the nighttime campus and distributed leaflets that proclaimed what he called Howara's great truth: Apathy Transcends Reality.

In frequent letters to The Daily Dartmouth, the Stork explained his mission: "Dartmouth students care for little more than football, tapping kegs, and getting into law school. I am only asking that they take the next logical step and care about absolutely nothing at all."

The Masked Stork was a misfit.

A MAN TURNS 40 AND BEFORE HE CAN GO on he needs to rummage through the attic of his memories, to sort the scattered clutter of his life into little piles of meaning. A blackand-white photograph of myself takes me back to the fall of 1972, my last quarter at Dartmouth the time of Nixon's election landslide over George McGovern, of Watergate, of the seemingly endless war.

The ski mask blocks my face, but through it I can see my sad, deep-set eyes, rimmed as always with dark circles.

FRESHMAN YEAR, 1969. DARTMOUTH WAS the big leagues the Ivy League. And I was petrified of failing, of disappointing my parents, of being forced to transfer to the University of Houston back home. To keep my anxiety at bay, I pursued my studies with single-minded devotion. Government 6, Math 7, English 3 somehow I parlayed those three courses into a full-time job, 16 hours a day, seven days a week. I lived an entire month without talking to a female of any age, not even a "blue lady" at Thayer Hall. Go to a mixer? The Freshman Week mixer was trauma enough. Roadtrip? I would have to miss Saturday morning classes. Learn to ski? Too dangerous. DOC, WDCR, The D? They sounded like fun, but I needed to reread Chapter 17 again.

Every Saturday afternoon about five o'clock, I would look up from my books and say, "Hanover, amuse me." And with such short notice, Hanover always disappointed. Seeing no other alternatives, I took refuge at the Nugget and at the Film Society program at the Hop. I saw more than 125 movies during my freshman year.

Sophomore year I loosened up. I saw only 60 movies.

November 4, 1969

Dear Son:

A SI SIT HERE WATCHING A TV MOVIE I FIND my thoughts going back to your call. So many of the problems you have exressed in the past weeks seem to revolve around the fair sex. Now why, after all, such a pre-occupation with sex particularly at a boys school!

Do you feel inferior as others brag about their exploits? Do you feel nervous about lacking something? Having sex adventures is certainly no big achievement as it all comes so naturally.

Or is this perhaps a substitute for other worries such as your life's work? Now this is a big deal, as your future work will involve most of your waking hours. Be patient. It will all work out. Sometime this year or next you'll get a feeling about what kind of work you prefer.

I'm sure you'll have fun dating Nancy this Christmas vacation. So, cheer up! You'll soon have a break.

Growing up gets very painful at times, but then every decade of your life has its problems.

Mom

To the editor:

IT IS ANOTHER FRIDAY night at Dartmouth College. I have finished riding for the night, having fulfilled my duty to Immortal Howara.

There are drunken boys down the hall singing obscene songs, but it does not touch me. I have transcended such disgusting aspects of Dartmouth College. Nay, more. I have transcended Dartmouth College.

My heart was gladdened tonight by one young man leaving the library after hours of diligent study. I approached him, hoping he would listen to the Word of Howara, but he walked steadfastly on. I cried, "I am the Masked Stork, disciple of Heavenly Howara." He walked on. "Here, take this, and you shall live!" I pleaded. "I don't want to get involved," he responded.

And I left him, for indeed he was already saved.

The Masked Stork

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE WAS IN THE throes of change in 1972. The Board of Trustees had voted to permit the admission of female freshmen, and that fall a small contingent of brave young women came to Hanover, not as weekend dates but as full-time students. The Trustees had also instituted year-round operation to accommodate the increased number of students resulting from coeducation, a complex plan that many feared would disrupt class unity and the continuity of fraternity, and, to a lesser extent, dormitory life.

Many of my classmates felt betrayed by President John Kemeny and the Trustees. In my classmates' view, the College's special traditions, the very things that composed the "Dartmouth experience," were being heaved overboard, and they deeply resented it. It was a time of heated tempers and embittered feelings.

Onto this volatile scene came the Masked Stork. Students who hated the"new Dartmouth" were powerless to do anything about it. In frustration they turned their anger on me.

In October, 1971,I placed advertisements in The D announcing a nighttime prayer meeting in front of Rollins Chapel for "new converts to the Cult of Apathy." Nearly 200 students attended. Hidden behind my mask, I found a spontaneous eloquence that I have not found since. I spoke glowingly of the power of apathy and its ability to smooth over the rough spots of life. I led my "following" through a series of chants: "Nothing is real, this does not touch me. Nothing is real, this does not touch me."

Suddenly, about 30 members of Beta Theta Pi, each wearing a ski mask, descended upon our peaceful gathering, threw a huge fishing net over me, and began to drag me away. But I had not planned foolishly. Ten bodyguards extricated me from the net and then escorted me to a waiting Cadillac, which whisked me away from the chapel. The car was followed, but my driver, who did not know my identity, was able to elude my pursuers. I learned later that Beta had planned to let me loose at Colby Sawyer College sans mask, sans cape, sans everything.

As all of this occurred, a small group of students, each dressed in a black robe and carrying a burning candle, passively looked on. A newspaper account the next day reported that they had identified themselves as members of the Cult of Apathy.

To the editor:

TODAY THERE IS A TENDENCY TO MOCK Dartmouth College and what it stands for. Immature students like the Masked Stork dress up like idiots, blaspheme the name of the college, and bring disgrace upon the whole student body.

Isn't it a shame that with the so-called awakening of today's youth has come a complete disregard for anything old and traditional? The old Dartmouth traditions once so valued have become the target for ridicule by any disgruntled, chronic complainer. I for one am proud to be a Dartmouth Man.

Chip Adams '75

THE LETTER IN THE D FROM CHIP ADAMS gave voice to what many students thought. What these students did not know, however, was that I was the author of that letter too. At one level, I wrote it to stir up the cauldron of hatred toward the Masked Stork. I also intended it as a parody of my "Green for Life" classmates. But as I read that letter now, I have a different understanding of it. In his own, true-Green way, Chip Adams was speaking a fundamental truth.

How much safer it was, at the age of 21, to look outside myself for the sources of my anger and unhappiness. Rather than be enriched by the best that Dartmouth offered, I damned it for its faults. I lashed out just as I would lash out at Stanford, where I took my doctorate; just as I would lash out at Brandeis University, where I took my first job; just as I would lash out at the consulting firm that lured me from teaching. Chronic complainer, indeed.

Today, as I look at photographs of the Masked Stork and the dark circles under his eyes, he reminds me that life is not only full of obligations, as he once thought, but fall of opportunities as well: Reality Transcends Apathy.

A D REPORTER LATER ESTIMATED THAT 800 people attended my Unmasking Ceremony at the Hop on Halloween night, just one month after my first letter to the editor had been published. I was driven to the Hop in the same Cadillac, this time protected by a ring of 25 bodyguards who ran alongside the car. My friends Roger and Turner sat beside me wearing hard hats and a look of grim determination. If necessary, they were ready to kick butt.

As we came down the hill from Fayerweather, a motorcycle with a flashing light signalled my approach to the waiting crowd. Dozens of people streamed around the car, surrounding it. They rocked the car back and forth, higher and higher, until I feared it might topple over. To my left, I could see a bemused campus policeman puffing on his pipe, oblivious to my terror. In front of us stood a student dressed in a green and white cape and ski mask holding a sign that read, "The Masked Stork Eats Shit!"

Finally my bodyguards intervened and the car came to a stop. To my right, a young woman dressed as a witch pressed her face against the car window. I struggled free of the car, and my bodyguards escorted me to the second-floor balcony overlooking the small courtyard in front of the Hop. I had prepared a speech, but catcalls from the crowd prevented me from being heard.

Then someone began throwing rocks at me. To bring the event to a close, I quickly unmasked myself to reveal a Halloween mask underneath. (My original plan had called for me to wear a Richard Nixon mask, but I was too lazy to find one.) To a crescendo of jeers, I fled through the back of the Hop and jumped into the Cadillac, which had circled around to meet me.

With that, the Masked Stork disappeared forever.

Swimming has givenhim a comeback of sortsalready, against cancer.

Class Notes in this magazine reported 18 years ago thatBill Dejong was working as a management trainee ata Taco Bell in Encino, California. The news was falseplanted, for reasons now obscure, by Bill Dejong.Having a Ph.D. in social psychology from Stanford, henow works in Wayland, Massachusetts, as a private consultant in health communications and lectures at theHarvard School of Public Health. We checked it out.

To my light,a youngwomandressed as awitch pressedher faceagainst thecar window.

A man turns40 and beforehe can go onhe needs torummagethrough theattic of hismemories.