The summer before I entered Dartmouth College my class was sent books to read in advance of our matriculation. One was by José Ortega y Gasset, the other I don’t remember. I do remember that I didn’t read either one so the lecture about them upon our arrival in Hanover was wasted on me.
Quickly though, I discovered that Dartmouth was not a place where I could blow off or through assignments and skate by. My professors were demanding and my classmates smart and during my four years I remember only one student who I felt might not have had the brains to be there.
Maybe I'm being harsh about him but it was about midnight in rural Virginia when he bridged a station wagon in which I was a passenger on a railroad track. Missing the turn was forgivable and there was a lively bar adjacent to our predicament. Upon our request some of its customers streamed out to help lift our vehicle off the tracks so we could return to the road from which we had strayed.
But as we got back in the car some of the good samaritans turned into bad drunks, surrounded our car and started banging on the hood demanding money.
"What should I do?” asked our driver. "I can’t run over them."
"No, but you can back the f___ up and get the hell out of here!"
I’m not sure I was the first one to shout this but I think that we all did.
That incident occurred during the spring of my sophomore year. I was on the golf team and we were on our spring trip, having worked our way north from South Carolina. A place called Fripp Island had been our starting point. It was a newly completed golf resort and its golf course had all the usual hazards you tried to avoid and an extra one that seemed more like a matter of life and death.
In addition to the sand traps and water hazards there were alligators roaming the fairways and more than a few. Our rounds took longer to complete since when we spotted a gator close to us none of us knew how to ask it to let us play through.
The final match of our tour was at the University of Maryland. I was slotted as last man on our team but that day I ended up paired against Maryland’s number one player who was being punished for showing up late and hungover. He was mad about his demotion and in golf, unlike football, anger is not usually going to work to your advantage.
I had a great day. The Maryland number one had a bad one and I beat him. That night my teammates and I celebrated and I vaguely remember at one point making a hazy trip to a men’s room.
When I arrived back on campus in Hanover I was faced with an academic decision I was required to make. In order to continue my studies in the fall I needed to declare a major. I had considered sociology but a baffling encounter as a freshman with a department professor who assigned us to read Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities squelched that idea.
It was a Tuesday when she announced that we were supposed to have it completed by Friday— all 458 pages. I approached her after class.
"Professor, I’m not sure I can read the book that fast."
"Look, let me tell you something," she said. "Most people only have one idea they’re trying to get across. If they’re great they might have two and if they have three they get the Nobel Prize."
She was out the door while finishing that last sentence and I decided that I’d explore a different subject for a major.
And so it was shortly after the return from the spring golf trip I walked across the Dartmouth Green to the English Department offices. The afternoon tea at the stately Sanborn House was for prospective English majors and I had put on a jacket and tie for the occasion that I was certain was pro forma. If I had been holding my tea cup and saucer correctly, I might have avoided what happened next.
As I listened and nodded while circulating around the room in front of the genteely dressed professors of the department— all were men back then by the way —I soon became aware that none were making consistent eye contact with me. They were more focused on the center of my chest. As soon as I lowered my head to see why, I understood the attraction. It was my tie— the same tie I had worn into the men’s room the night after my big win on the golf course.
Puke does not exactly blend in and go unnoticed on a repp tie and I immediately concluded that English was not going to be the best choice for my concentration of studies during the next two years and made a hasty getaway.
When we returned to school that fall I still hadn’t made up my mind about a major. History seemed like an option and I went to the bookstore to see what courses I would be signing up for but while checking them out I saw a class on Africa that was being taught by a government professor whose course I had taken and liked… Yep, at that moment I became a government major.
After graduation when I went looking for a job, I was asked by an interviewer what I had studied in college. I told him the story I’ve just told you, vomit stained tie and all. I thought he almost hired me but I could be wrong.
Peter, I'm so sorry you missed out on that opportunity. I will tell you a little story that happened long, long ago, over lunch with Judith Daniels (that's how long ago) and Deb Weisgall. At a certain point, Judith said rather wistfully, "I always thought there should be a publication called English Major Magazine." To which Deb and I chorused Yes, yes, yes! Deb immediately said "I'll be knitting editor" and I claimed the post of food editor. Sadly, Judith died and the world has been lacking ever since.