Clad in jeans, clogs and my ski team jacket , I walked into the Hop for breakfast, something that has become a routine over four years at Dartmouth. Suddenly I was feeling a little out of sorts. Something was amiss in my home away from home. The ID register was cheerfully emitting its two tone beeps and the assembly line of breakfast sandwiches was well under way, but there was something about the familiar faces there from the senior class. They were the same faces I had seen since our dirt smudged Freshman Trip days. However, there were at least six of them decked out from head to toe in stylish business suits.
I exchanged pleasantries with them and noticed their dialogue had been elevated a notch to the level they use when they are out to dinner with your parents. A scene reminiscent of Eddie Haskel and the not so easily fooled Mrs. Cleaver.
Suddenly self-conscious that I still look like a scruffy Dartmouth student, I felt uneasy in the presence of my newly transformed classmates. I took a removed table for myself and pondered the situation. Where are we going, what are we doing and why can't we all just stay here and run around bonfires and build snow sculptures forever? It is quickly becoming all too much to deal with.
For over a week I had been calling Dartmouth alumni for the Student Telethon in pursuit of finance. Seventy percent of the time, I hung up with a hefty pledge, but my short lived fundraising endeavors afforded me something more. I guess you could call it a privileged glimpse into what we are all destined to become five years, 25 years and even 60 years from now.
The voices over the telethon wires told me something. They each had a different story, but one message pervaded throughout. My friends in suits enjoying their last days of dining in the Hop will become the vice presidents of banks I had been speaking with from the Class of 1964. And yes, they will be the ones from the Class of 1929 who asked me in tarnished and tired voices to please repeat myself. And perhaps one of them will be the one who hung up on me, telling me Dartmouth just isn't the way it used to be.
My clogs don't feel so funny anymore. I am proud to still be able to wear them and to run across the Green in them, just because it's not the conventional thing to do and because someone said I couldn't. I forgive my friends for suddenly making me feel like they have 10 years on me, just as long as they too are unafraid to strip off the pretences of their future and streak through these last days of glory.
