My May Day was a memorable one — complete with beginning chemo and radiation, something that will last until close to Reunion and thereafter, we fervently hope, never again need to be repeated. It was actually a hopeful, fairly happy day — one in which we gave thanks that such treatments exist and that my colorectal cancer (diagnosed in late March) is amenable to them.
Three special moments stand out ...
The first was a surrealistic moment at Lake Harriet, to which we’d repaired between appointments at Abbott Northwestern. It was around 3 and we were headed for a lot in which to park and watch the buds pop and the wind surfers enjoying the steady breezes ... when we drove past a group of fully costumed Morris dancers. We didn’t have our cameras handy alas, but the attached photo will give you a very general idea.
To the tune of a piping recorder, the small, coed, fairly young group twirled scarves on a bright green lawn and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Belatedly, I realize it could have been a personal May Day celebration or maybe rehearsal for a later performance. At the time, I just delighted in the incongruity of it — and the music and movement.
There’d been special music at chemotherapy earlier, too...
While we were talking with a physician’s assistant, we heard live violin music outside the exam room. When we left with her, we discovered two women playing classical duets in the reception room. “Oh,” said the PA, “it’s one of our patients. How nice.” And it was, but it turned out it was even more than she knew. After a few more numbers, one of the violinists explained that she and her playing partner had known each other since grade school and had taken violin from the same grand lady, Mary. Mary, now 97, was undergoing chemo in the other room, having had her first treatment the day the other woman had had her final one. Their serenade, while intended to uplift everyone in hearing distance, was a tribute to all she’d given them.
At the butt end of the day (so to speak) came radiation — a little more complicated than future sessions will be because they needed to do all kinds of baseline stuff, position me for optimum results, etc. Finally, it was time for the zapping, made obvious by the fact that the two very personable technicians became disembodied voices behind a protective wall. As I waited, face down, head resting on my rapidly numbing arms, I offered up a number of entreaties, made a couple of deals with the Powers That Be, and uttered a battle cry borrowed from Xena: Warrior Princess (“Kill them all!”).
At that moment the station playing oldies over the intercom chose to switch to a new song, “We Are Family.” The Sister Sledge song is coincidentally the theme song of the Ashmore women (mother and daughters) and was the first song I put on a dance compilation CD I distributed to friends last Solstice. There wasn’t a single better song to accompany this experience, as far as I was concerned. It reminded me of both the love and support of my family and friends and the camaraderie already so evident among the people in the chemo room — from the folks who discovered a common interest in Scotland and spent time swapping hints on where to go on future trips to the bald 30-something woman, her face tear-stained from having endured a dreadfully tough time finding a vein for her treatment, who took care to reassure this newbie as I left that the anti-nausea drugs really worked and that all this would be behind me before I knew it.
The cancer chemo family is not one I would have willingly become part of, something classmates who have been through this process themselves or with loved ones will second, I'm sure. But -- like some of the families I fell into at Carleton, from frosh geo seminar classmates and folk dancers to Asian studies majors and Tonian and Algol compatriots -- I'm sure they're going to enrich my life greatly. I promise to try to give at least as good as I get.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
The Merry Month of May
Sunday, April 29, 2007
First Impressions, Part 8: The First Day of School
Submitted by Todd Lund
Thanks, Galia and David, for your memories of coming to Northfield for the first time. What bad luck for David, finding his trunk with all his worldly possessions to take him through freshman year damaged and/or wet. And how typical of you, Galia — you free spirit, you — just to be glad to get there and be free. And all these years I'd assumed Chris to be a quiet and mild-mannered geologist, when his background actually had a streak of Jack Kerouac in it. Who knew?
I believed I was really leaving home in June of ’68 when my parents dropped me off in front of the downtown Minneapolis YMCA, where a bus would take a group of us up to Camp Warren in northern Minnesota for the summer. Although I’d been to camp nearly every summer, this would be my first time as a (junior) counselor. After three months of new challenges, proving myself to others, and gaining (so I thought) a mature sense of self-confidence, I returned home to endure two weeks before leaving for Carleton. I vowed that I would not let my parents get to me and disrupt what I believed to be my firmly centered sense of independence.
I didn’t have a chance—both of them were positively distracted with anxiety that their first-born son and primary object of their expectations was about to leave home, go off their radar, and for all purposes out of their direct control. My parents easily managed to infect me with their anxiety, and I felt three months worth of self-confidence hard won in the woods of northern Minnesota swirling around the edge of the bowl. “Are you sure you want to go to Carleton? Are you certain you made the right decision? Don't forget, we'll always be your parents.” And any number of other instructions, queries, claims, pleas, cues for homage to the family script, and requirements for me to explain myself, even though what I was about to do was completely normal — leave home and try to grow up.
After two weeks of pestering, wheedling, prying, niggling, lecturing, demands for reassurance and downright near keening on the part of my Irish mother, I felt as though I'd regressed all the way back to Ninth Grade. My silent Norwegian father had never been big on talking or giving advice; when he acted interested in my welfare somehow it always felt perfunctory. He'd managed thus far to avoid talking with me about sex, and he wasn't about to get started at this point. Years later I learned how a friend’s father had given him a pack of condoms as he left for Carleton his freshman year with the strict instructions, “Here, take these. And don't you go getting any girl pregnant!” I was absolutely dumbstruck with admiration; that a young man’s father could actually do such a thing seemed inconceivable (no pun intended).
My parents drove me down to Northfield from Minneapolis. My mom sat in the back seat smoking, and managed with an ash from her cigarette — unintentionally no doubt — to burn a hole in my favorite sweater, which was for some reason sitting in a plastic garment bag on the seat next to her. (I don't know why I remember this.) As we drove south on 35W and approached the turnoff for Highway 19 to Northfield it started to rain a steady soft drizzle. The rain and mist shrouding the campus only added to the mystery and appeal of starting a new life.
I distinctly remember turning the key in the door of my freshman year room on Third Burton, thinking, “OK, this is it — this is the beginning.” The door of our triple opened, and the first thing I noticed was the attractive smell of linseed oil and fresh paint. I looked in the two small rooms off the center room, and noticed one had a single bed and the other, a bunk bed. I asked my dad, “Which room should I take?” He looked at me like I was an idiot, and said, “Are you kidding? The single.” (He would have been thinking, “You can study without interruption when you're alone.” Neither of my parents had any concept of stereos in dorms and the level of noise they generated.)
Around the time my parents were leaving, roommate Roger Lasley walked in with his electric guitar (a really cool, cherry-red Epiphone), a Fender amp, and boxes and boxes of records. I was a green kid who’d grown up mostly in a bubble, the all-white suburb of Edina, and on those records were bands I’d never heard of, like Paul Butterfield, The Grateful Dead and The Band (Music from Big Pink)—along with the near-complete works of musicians I had, like Bob Dylan. Many thanks to Roger and his record collection for my musical education during freshman year. I felt guilty for appearing selfish in taking the single room, since Roger got the bunk bed across the room.
Last to join our triple was John Ferguson, who drew the top bunk above Roger. For some reason John never took to Carleton. Despite our group’s fall term camaraderie John left us and transferred to Madison during winter term, never to be heard from again.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
First Impressions, Part 7: Now for Something Completely Different
Submitted by Chris Rautman
Well, in the infamous words of Monty Python, ".... and now for something COMPLETELY different,” I will weigh in with my own story of applying to Carleton.
As several of you folks probably already may know, I am a bit of an even-odder-than-normal oddball Carl, in that I did my first two years at a junior college (a long-but-irrelevant story there, too), and then transferred to Carleton as a junior in the fall of '70. So I applied to, and was accepted by Carleton, not once, but twice! (Whatever where they thinking?)
Like most of you, I first applied in 1966-67, and again like many of you, I visited the college during the summer of '67. Actually, this was, by no means, my FIRST visit to Carleton, as my folks had taught at Carleton, in the 1945-1948) time frame. We had passed through Northfield, on a very informal basis numerous times while I and my siblings were growing up, "to see where Mommy and Daddy used to live." My mom's folks lived just across the Mississippi, a bit southeast of Mpls in Wisconsin, so we spent each summer in the Midwest.
I had met with a mountain climbing accident at Philmont Scout Ranch in northeastern New Mexico in the summer of 1966, and so by the summer of '67, I was still not 100 percent back to normal, sufficiently to do my usual Boy Scout wilderness-camp thing. I was cruising the Upper Midwest with a high-school buddy, who also had relatives in the Minnesota-Wisconsin area, and whose aunt in Minneapolis had given him his own car (a '57 Ford). My folks "encouraged" Mark and me to drive the 50 miles or so, from my grandparent's house to Northfield, and to look over the campus. This was July, so the place was largely deserted.
I was rather "uninterested" at the time (way too far off in the future), but I distinctly remember driving around the circle drive in front of Laird and Leighton, seeing Gridley where the MDC now stands, and other salient features of the campus (not sure the 'Hue was even there, then). I probably also talked with the admissions office, but it seems to have been a particularly un-memorable conversation. I returned to my grandparents' place, and subsequently went off to visit other relatives in the eastern half of Wisconsin, and to drive back to Florida with my friend (and my uncle) at the end of the summer.
Fast-forward to the fall of '69 and the spring of '70. Junior college ending after two years, I was again confronted with the issue of where to go to finish up what I now knew would be a major in geology. The prospects were many. One of my buddies and I were going to go to Florida State University, in Tallahassee, where we were both going to finish our degrees in geology. Having now had two more years of parental supervision and control, I was also thinking of "getting away" — as in, "far" away. As in, I applied to the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, one of the geology schools in Washington state, and probably some additional ones elsewhere (Arizona?).
Carleton was about as far from my mind as was possible, particularly all the more so, as that was where my folks wanted me to go. Actually, it was more like "you may go anywhere you want, so long as it's Carleton." Or so it seems in my memory, lo, all these thirty-seven-plus years later, and with all due apologies and respect for my deceased parents. I frankly do not even really remember "applying" to Carleton. Probably my mother dug out and dusted off my earlier application (the essay and all), and presented it to me. I probably grudgingly updated it, signed it, and mailed it off, all the while contemplating the exciting geologic environs of western Oregon and the freedom ahead.
I do know that I headed out to Philmont Scout Ranch again that summer, immediately after junior college "graduation," which was at the very tail end of spring quarter at Carleton. Since in those days, the easiest way to get from Florida to northeastern New Mexico was to fly into Denver, I took a plane to Minneapolis (was TPA-MSP-DEN really the best routing, or did my folks orchestrate that, somehow? One would think O'Hare would have provided better connections).
It was arranged (note the intentional use of the passive voice) that I would stop over in Minnesota, take the Jefferson down to Northfield, talk to the admissions folks, stay overnight in a dorm room, and then proceed westward to my summer job at Philmont. By this point, I was, like, "whatever," with respect to this "pipe dream" of my parents.
I dutifully flew in to Minneapolis; stayed overnight at the downtown YMCA; took the Jefferson; disembarked at the Stuart; walked up Musser hill, backpack on my back; talked to not only the admissions folks, but also to Eiler Henrickson and Ed Buchwald in the geology department, and who showed me around their facilities; discovered the PDP-8 computer lab in the basement of Laird; ate Saga food (did I really say that?); walked in the Arb; and spent the night in Goodhue with "Kenny _____, who must have been a junior, and whose roommate was somewhere else.
(As an aside, it's probably just as well that I can't remember his last name (in to protect the guilty), as he ended up being the senior leader of my now-ex's freshman-orientation group, and we learned that he was a real druggie: Naive frosh question: "Is there a drug problem at Carleton?" Sophisticated senior response: "No, there's no problem here. What do you want?")
The rest is history. I fell in love with Carleton and its "home" Midwest setting, I was much more impressed with the geology department than I had been with Florida State, and I could scarcely wait to return in the fall. Which, of course, I did. I'm not sure I ever wrote Oregon State et al. letters declining their acceptances.
Something happened during those two intervening years, and most likely during that sophomore year. Doesn't "sophomore" translate as "wise fool"? Perhaps the "fool" "wised-up" a bit between '69 and '70. Certainly that time was a time of "wising up", in any number of ways, for many of us — Kent State, anti-war protests, strikes, riots, etc. But it would seem that I changed a lot, hopefully some of it maturation. I went from being someone who barely managed to be rehired at Philmont because of my previous summer's performance reviews to a staff member actually "fought over" by several groups who wanted me by the end of the summer. I latched on to what would become my life's work, and later managed to get into my first choice grad school in geology with a fellowship (yup, also in the Midwest, the University of Wisconsin - Madison).
By the way, it was not until thirty-plus years later, that I learned that my Florida State buddy, with whom I had been going to do "real" college, had flunked out of FSU (can you spell "Par-ty! Par-ty!", a la John Belushi?) and ended up joining the Navy as a boilerman.
Interesting. Who knows what might have happened, but for that fateful campus visit .....
Friday, April 27, 2007
First Impressions, Part 6: Another Long Distance Choice
Submitted by Fred Rogers
Me too. I graduated from high school in Beirut, Lebanon, with no chance to visit any of the schools I applied to, except that I had been to my parents' reunion at Oberlin when much younger. I think I first walked on the Carleton campus that summer when we came to campus to deliver my "stuff" in a trunk, which we stored somewhere. Then I went off to eventually spend the end of the summer with relatives while my family flew back to the Middle East. I arrived again on campus with the freshmen in September, with wide eyes and very vague expectations. And, in so many ways, my expectations were exceeded!
First Impressions, Part 5: Shuttle into the Unknown
Submitted by David Davis-Van Atta
No, Galia, you are not alone. It never even crossed my mind that students might visit campuses before applying or enrolling. And I don't recall anyone suggesting the idea to me. So I just applied, got my letter, and came in September. And thought this was all perfectly normal. (It was more normal back then than it is now.)
Thus my first memories of Carleton are of a very dreary, rainy day — low, wet, and gray. Didn't look good at all! I now know that the transportation (whatever it was — I don't recall) came down Hwy 3 from the airport. Farmington was then more as its name would imply: a very small town, all but purely agriculturally-based. Having grown up in rural Ohio (Oberlin), it just looked like a thousand little towns I'd been through, and I felt right at home. And it looked especially wet and forlorn in the rain and light fog.
I wonder who else was on that same shuttle ride?! As I recall it, we were all pretty quiet. Nervous. At least I was.
I remember picking up my trunk with (nearly) all my worldly possessions for college, which we had bought at the Army-Navy store in Oberlin and shipped weeks before. It was smashed! Broken open, stuff coming out. Which just went along with the mood of the day. I really was trying to be excited! But mostly — I was just scared. The trunk was also really unwieldy in its broken condition, hard to carry without losing more stuff. And, of course, it was raining which got things wet. Somehow, again I don't recall how, I managed to get it to my room, but it was quite difficult. I remember that the little bit of home and familiarity my stuff offered felt good.
When it rained a little as we were standing in line for graduation (remember?!), I thought it was kind of appropriate. We had come in the rain, and now a little rain fell as we were leaving.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
First Impressions, Part 4: Sight Unseen ...
Submitted by Galia Goodman
Am I the only one who never visited the campus before choosing Carleton?
I was a jr. high student when I first fell in love with the college. The son of my first pre-school teacher was a student at the time, and he was doing a little recruiting during his summer break, and I was allowed to go to the event: There was a movie, a talk by an older alum, and Dan's enthusiastic comments ... That was it. I never looked seriously at any other school, and when I was turned down for early decision, I panicked. I quickly applied to several other ACM schools, thinking that if I got to within shouting distance maybe I could transfer in after my freshman year at Oberlin or wherever else might accept me.
Fortunately I didn't have to resort to that plan — I got in on the regular admissions date, and never even opened the envelopes from the other schools. (My mother did, though. I actually did get into Oberlin!)
So the first time I saw the college was a week before my birthday in late August of '68. What a great birthday gift!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
First Impressions, Part 3: The People I Wanted as Classmates
Submitted by Nancy Dixon
First visit to Carleton? Summer of '67. Our family vacation that year was visiting colleges in the Midwest. My parents thought I was not focused on finding a college and told me the vacation would be in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. I was to write to colleges and pick the ones to visit. Now, you must understand that at that point, family vacations were camping vacations. Add to that my parents insisted on "appropriate attire" for the college visit — suit for Dad, dresses for my Mother, sister and me. Not sure about my brother — he was 10 so was probably the most casual. What I remember was pulling into campgrounds dressed for visiting a college, opening up our camper and then going in to emerge in jeans and sweatshirts. The reverse would happen in the morning — suitably attired for a college visit, we broke camp.
Carleton was the last. When we came into Northfield, my parents, who had observed that all liberal arts colleges are on hills, noted that Northfield had two hills, one for each college. As Missourians, we paid our respects to the Jesse James robbery. Other campus memories have superseded so I don't have specific recollections of the visit though I know by then I knew the questions to ask and was impressed.
The second visit was that fall. The 'rents said I could pick two schools to visit while the students were there. I was pretty sure I wanted to go to Carleton and took advantage of the opportunity to go again. Took the train up. Went to a class. What I remember most, was the people — they were what I wanted as classmates. If Carleton would take me, I was ready to go.
