Vichy Water – Author's Blog Just another WordPress weblog

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             Part of the title is “A Rambling,” which presumes rambling all over a sentimental journey (a fifties song) I’m about to take. Last night was special. My wife and I drove to Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia to hang with an old college buddy. A realization slapped me gently in the face as my American SUV crossed over the Turnpike Delaware River Bridge. Butch and I started out as freshmen nearly five decades ago. I like using ‘decade;’ this way you can say “a few decades” and cover-up 40 or 50 years. I know cover-up is a timely word. Watergate comes to mind. I spent two weeks on vacation with my first wife just watching the testimony of John Dean (an idol of mine because of his powers of recollection) and Haldemann and Erlichmann(non idols). Perhaps lying in bed in a motel room on Cape Hatteras watching Watergate Hearings and not spending time ‘On The Beach'(a great horrific movie, if you’re into apocalypse) with my wife contributed to the eventual dissolution of my first marriage. Isn’t dissolution a gentler, kinder and cheaper word than divorce?

            A few months ago I found a box in the basement, covered-up (there’s that word again) by boxes of old books and magazines. The box contained pictures, letters, diaries of my college years and first marriage. So I had show and tell material for Butch last night. I had an invitation to a fraternity rush party, letters Butch wrote informing me that our fraternity was kicked off campus (after I transferred to Rutgers) for stuffing campus ballot boxes and that my first girl friend started dating (when I transferred) another frat brother(they’re married all this time and living in Cleveland(thanks to Google, Facebook and Twitter). Diaries remembered students (me too) protesting Senator Barry Goldwater speaking at University of Toledo (Time Magazine said we gave him the worst reception during his campaign for President in 1964). Then there was a speaker from a place called Viet Nam. None of us ever really heard of that country. It was 1964. My mother said lectures broaden.

             One letter my mother wrote asked if I was getting weekly checks on time. She budgeted for me $23 a week, to cover food, dates, books, dentists and emergency root canal. That Toledo dentist had compassion; no charge to poor freshman dormitory students. A diary entry on a Toga Party; Butch and I remembered and smiled, thinking we were ahead of ‘Animal House.’ A house mother lived with us to prevent girls from being in the frat house other than for a legal party. The house mother wrote me when I transferred to say “I was a nice boy.”  Who says that today? After thought; if we had a house father, would he have looked the other way and let girls cross the threshold?

            We laughed about pledging, hell night, insurrection and how simple the world was back in 1963. Kennedy was President. Last night we had a wonderful dinner in a new Cuban restaurant on Germantown Avenue; prior we walked around Chestnut Hill; each home was unique, carpeting us back to Tudor England and far away from New Jersey suburbia where if you want Italian food, you’ve got an olive chain with people huddled outside (wearing shorts) every few miles. We were alive walking around Chestnut Hill.

             We’ve been friends for 47 years. Today is Rutgers graduation. I’m watching the ceremony on computer stream as I write this. Governor Christie is being given an honorary doctorate. Two years ago (I’m whispering now) I made a CD for myself. Twenty-two songs. All “Pomp and Circumstance.” Obsessive and compulsive? Sure, but evocative of memories of my graduation from Rutgers in 1969. There was a picture in that box of handing the diploma to my mother. She deserved it more. I get all choked up when I hear “Pomp and Circumstance.” It was with me when I graduated Maple Avenue School, Weequahic High School and Rutgers University. I just heard it being streamed in from Rutgers.  When I graduated in 1969, Viet Nam was in my thoughts every step I took into Rutgers Stadium. Five years earlier, I never heard of Viet Nam.  Good luck to all graduates. “Plastics.”

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