Grinnell:

a Love Story?

by J. 0. Woods

What do you say about a twenty
one-year—old who died?

That he loved me, the Beatles,
and Bach , . No! i really can’t
Write that Column. Gl‘innell is not
Love Story. Actually, I ieel like a
lab rat at the completion oi a
maze I marvel at my endurance
and agility, but wonder whether
the reward is Worth the effort Can
an over-educated Elton John freak
find true happiness in a world
where Richard Turner (the at
torney general) and Ben See
compete tor the Porous of the Year

lreadlast year's S&B's and saw
myseli iresh and alive, a very
different person from today's tired
hulk. i think very quietly over the
things that the last four years in
this spiritual playpen have done to
me and ior me. I see myseli in
tears, joyous, enraged, ems
bittered. in love, I see myself

by Mark Hanisch

Back when “beer" was
something advertised between
innings oi Cub games and “dope"

, was that stuff that made hippies’

eye sockets hide irom the sun, 1
formulated three main reasons
[not counting apathy) for picking
Grinnell as the place where I would
attempt to recover from the ill
stream of an overly-academic high
school career.

First, I chose Grinnell because it
had a Communications Depart-
ment. in some ways, I’m thankiul
for this masterful academic
deception because it taught me
what a “pimp" is. Part of the

V beauty ot the particular “pimp" is

that after I was let in on the little
joke, i could help “pimp” iuture
incoming students by also
pretending that Grinnell had a
communciations program. The
best thing that X can say about my
communications education is that I
can still write a complete sentence,

Secondly, i came to Grinnell so
that I could participate in ins
tercollegiate athletics. What I
didn’t know then was that earning
a letter at Grinnell is about as
difficult as running the mile in less
than a day and a hali. (The rumor
that Grinnell is recruiting a
bilateral amputee to periorm in the
pole vault is not quite accurate,
however.)

Soccer gave me the opportunity
to find out what pain and an

, operating room are like. i think

.hat I set four conference records
In baseball—most consecutive
ground outs to the pitcher and most
ground outs to the pitcher in a
game, season, and career. I had to

toiling through long nights in iutile
labor. 1 see myseli drunkenly
hobbling through a barren place
and the descent or cold night. I see
myseli standing warm and proud
in the [ace of daybreak. Grinnell
has taught me to understand the
Pauline dictum: ive vivemus, sive
morimur, dominl sumus. It has
made me understand that the
world is a warm place, not idyllic,
but warm.

This does not cease my wishing
that the college would give 5 x. H
Green Stamps (in proportion to
tuition paid) at Commencement.
that we may realize a more
tangible gain ior our eftorts. As it
is, the only thing i will be able to
see irom my iour years here will be
a fiftyrcent piece or sheepskin and
a collection of books which shall, in
iuture years (due to lack of time),
prove bootless.

The existentialists and other
idiots proclaim that our passing
will not be missed, that we will be
replaced, that when we are
forgotten here we will no longer
exist here, but I respond that we
will be here in spirit, that my
laughter has echoed too many
times in these halls and my tears
have too otten bred sunshine, that
the rain has too often set my tears
and the North Wind has too often
heard my song, not to remember
me They say that you can never go
home again, but you can, for your
soul has wings which can cover
time, and mine, 1 know, will wing
back to Grinnell.

As you see, I have very mixed
ieelings which only time can ab»
solve, I do not know whether
Grinnell has been a worthwhile
experience, but I say thanks to be
God that love depends not on
worthiness, but on the totally
objective concept oi beauty. Lord
be praised ior so immaculate a
conception.

V Expectations &

The Gl'innellScarlet and Black, May 20. l975—p. 2}

Geology &

togethernes

by A. Richard Turner
Communityi Everyone’s lor it, like Mother and Apple Pie, and

everyone’s sure we don’t have it. Three years ago l attended a Big :,

Think Educational Conference at Harvard, about which I remember
le, except for a luncheon With sociologist David Riesman. Beneath
the unsmiling portraits on the Harvard Faculty Club wal he stated-
ilatly that departments oi geology are the happiest in America.

Departments oi geology? We, a philosopher, an art historian, and a
physicist, inquired why. Easy. hey take iield trips. There is a com-
mon goal, and the quality of each individual's contribution to reaching
that group goal is obvious to all. And there are added bonuses. Usually
it is colder than expected, and rains. Poison ivy andror mosquitoe
contribute to the miserable camaraderie, and with any luck at all,
three stitiches in a knee seal the sense of common misswn against
odds, touched by intimations oi martyrdom.

Ihurried back to Mlddlebury with this new thought in mind, and
checked the local Version of the Institutionalized Grapevine. No doubt
about it. Geology courses (with iield trips) came out on top, closely t
followed by studio art, and seminars characterized by group oral
reports. The common denominator seemed to be a group endeavor,
marked by mildly manic masochism.

Fear not. This isn’t going to turn out to be a covert argument ior
workshop education; or a return to requirements where significant
numbers oi student engage in the same tasks, or above all, a case for,
establishing a department or geology {such are not my sediments).
But the general line of thought is provocative: a failure to establish
goals together, to share openly successes and iailures, is valuable
experience sadly ioregone

Among my strongest positive impressions oi Grinnell have been the ~
successes oi doing some ing together, ’nstead of talking about what
might be. The list is varied, a comesfromrbehlnd basketball game, a
Third World panel at the Food Conference, Creativity Day on
inauguration weekend, a panel on World Understanding Weekend, at
film on railroading, and on the list could go.

I'm suggesting, and maybe it’s just a little madness in the spring,
that like Aristotle's polls, this is a place where one voice can be, and
often is, heard. Where voices are raised in concern, doubts expressed.
where persons seriously want to make things better,there
unquestionably is the beginning of health.

At any rate, the iigurative geology field trip strikes me as the way to
go. We need do more things together, play things and work things, and
must strike a balance between the tune of a different drummer, and
insistence on absolute equality, which is not more than in-
terchangeability. Let's have the courage of our differences, but bend
them to the common cause. ,

Why this rumination? Because so many seniors have raised the
general problem with me, and because so many care. We say goodbye
to them and thanks; you’ve left something important with us, and we
hopeeach one oi you takes something important away.

fulfillments

make sure that a Grinnell
“athlete” holds these records.

Actually, the great value oi
Grinnell athletics for me (and for
many others, i would guess) did
not stem directly from the im-
provement of motor skills. (The
constant damage to our egos would
have been too overwhelming to
handle) Rather, while interacting
with each other and with coaches
who demonstrated intelligence and
understanding, some of us were
able to use sports as a tool to help
us grow. For example, main»
taining poise, retraining irom
making excuses ior iailure, and
understanding and tolerating lack
oi ability in yourself and others
isn’t easy while you’re losing a
baseball game ill to l in five in-
nings in iront oi jeering Monmouth
mouths.

Playing under Coach Ptitsch
helped to make me aware of and
accept my athletic limitations (I’ll
never forget Pfitsch's longwinded
endorsements of ”negative rein-
forcement”) and helped to make
me realize that lessons learned
through athletics can be applied in
more important segments of iiie.

in some respects it’s too bad that
Grinnell is attempting to field
more competitive athletic teams; i
only hope that Grinnell athletes in
the iuture learn as much in victory
as l did in defeat.

Finally, 1 came to Grinnell to
“grow up.” I’m still not quite sure
what that means, but I think at that
time it meant (roughly) the ability
to “be cool” around girls and sound
educated by using big words.

For various reasons, the above
definition proved to be very unr

satisiactory, so I substituted a
more thoughtful definition of the
person i wanted to become and i
tried to become the closest possible
approximation of that person that I
could.

Pursuing this goal meant the
subordination of academic pur-
suits, but that wasn’t hard for a
Communications major. I also had
the help of the best [riends I‘ve
ever had and together we grew.

Over the semesters, we took
hourrlong lunches, looked for or
avoided “bufu's”, laughed at
“turkeys”, had Christmas parties
with jag presents. ordered Pag’s
pizza with double cheese, got
“bummed out” with nothing to do,
played Neri ball, watched ate
tel-noon movies that lasted into
class time, played loud music at
obnoxious partia. greeted and
partied with graduated or trans
sferred friends visiting for the
night, sprinted to the post oiiice at
five o’clock to beat paper dealines,
went ”tubing”, cooked out, and
emptied six-packs, twelve-packs,
cases, and bottles.

laid

Also, we watched “Floppy",
enjoyed Monday night football
gatherings, played paddlepool in
the lounge on iinals nights, went to
Skelly’s at 3 am, helped each
other home from the Horn, the
Pub, and other assorted locales,
shared problems and helped each
other to find solutions, watched
Sunday aiternoon sports on Tv,
cultivated senses of humor which
allowed us to laugh at each other
and ourselves, and turned in
assignments late because
“academictime”\vasspcntinlong
walks or meaningiul conversation.

To mapy others the above list
probably seems like a haphazard
collection of activitiesibut tome it
isn’t. it represents iour years or
doing instinctively what I thought
was best ior me—spending as
much time, even in inane ac-
tivities, Wlth excellent people so
that I could learn more about
them and more about myseli.

These activitiesiand many
more like themicomprlse the
major reason why I am glad that I
chose to attend Grinnell.
Sometimes they also make it hard
to leave.

 

