Chapter Three: The Kid Gets a (New) Life
The moment the kid arrived home from his DOC trip I knew that something had changed. It wasn't just his new approach to roughing it ("I wore the same shirt the whole time," he boasted on his way to the shower) or his expanded social life ("Those trips really work. I met JO many kids."). No, by the time he arrived back at the house it was obvious that he had already left home.
Bundling up his belongings would be a mere formality. He and a fellow local '02 packed up her stuff and moved her into her dorm one day, then packed up and moved his stuff the next. "You can come tomorrow when all the other parents are there," he told his dad and me. By then the kid and his roommates had already arranged their tworoom triple in Mid-Fayer "It's the ultimate bachelor pad," the kid beamed as he gave us the tour past their big speakers and mini-fridge. A final family lunch of Hop fries, a quick hug, and he was gone.
The '02s as a group, however, filled the campus with high spirits. In that week before the upperclasses arrived the 'o2s ran and played like puppies on the Green. They turned out for the first football game against Penn (a loss, 17-14) along with anothernewcomer to Memorial Field: "Dartmoose" an inflatable cortoonish mascot with a cat-n-th-Hat-Like chapeau and a Barneyesque lumber. "Kill the moose," a couple of'00S called from the stands. "Stick him with a pin," an '01 yelled. The '02 s seemed more receptive, even after the moose's head deflated right in front of the crowd. "We thought he was cool," the kid reported.
As the '02 s poured out of the stands I hoped they would prove as open to each other as well. I wished they could have heard Montgomery Fellow Johnetta Cole last spring as she gave the most down-to-earth talk I'd ever heard on "crossing lines of difference." Ask yourself if you have any friends who are different from you, the anthropologist and former Spelman College president had urged in a packed public lecture. Then ask yourself why not. Don't be afraid to make some mistakes, say the wrong thing, or reveal an ignorance about other peoples lives, she had counseled; such mis-steps go with the territory of overcoming the fears, habits, and assumptions that keep people apart.
Not that there's a shortage of timely speakers on campus this fall. Journalist Marvin kalb lectured on "The Challenge of Modern Journalism" and former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder on "The Future of Public Service." New York City mayor and nice-meister Rudolph Giuliani was here. And the Rocky Center will be inaugurating the Paul E. Tsongas '62 Memorial Lecture with senators John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, and Warren Rudman discussing "Citizenship and Civil Society."
Strolling through Dartmouth's own civil society, I happen upon the kid. "How are things going? " I ask, trying to sound only distantly interested. Everything's great, he nods. A couple of trippees recruited for crew had convinced him to go out for the sleekly hellish sport. "We had to do a killer ab work- out," he tells me. "Afew more weeks of this and I'll have a six- pack." And as he disappears into the crowd once again, I'm thinking, I sure hope he's talking about his muscles.
