Onceupon a sultry South Carolina summer morning, two 11-year-old girls decided to build a fort. One collected wood from her father's garage, and the two then proudly built what they thought was the biggest and best fort their side of the Mason-Dixon line.
But the fort was lacking something. What could it be? Somewhere in the depths of her basement, one girl found left-over wallpaper. Perfect.
Now the dilemma was how to keep the wallpaper stuck to the walls of their fort. The girls pondered this question until they came up with an answer that suited them both: flour and water.
The pasty mixture or flour and water was successful as an adhesive and the girls were thrilled at their creation. They went to bed that night, satisfied that they had produced a masterpiece.
Unfortunately, the ants also took a strong liking to the fort, or to be more precise, to the flour-and-water combination that held the wallpaper firmly in place. The next morning, much to the girls' chagrin, the fort was completely ant-ridden.
But never fear -- the girls would cover up the ants and the wallpaper with something else. They walked to a nearby convenience store and proceeded to buy as many Teen Beat magazines as their change could handle (which were quite a few). And upon their return to their constructed masterpiece of a fort, they plastered pictures of Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe all over the ant-infested wallpaper.
Indeed, for these two 11-year-old girls, sixth grade was a time for school, play and best friendships under the hot South Carolina sun. It was also a time to make a very important choice: forts or boys; childhood or adolescence. Quite apparently, the girls were having trouble deciding which they truly wanted. So they compromised between the two, enjoying the physical manifestation of their transition -- a fort covered with pictures of male movie stars.
Once upon a wild Dartmouth sophomore summer, over 1,000 students sit at a similar transition point. Caught in a limbo between sophomore and junior years (which exactly are we, anyway?), we alternatively test our will to be independent and our way to get away with still being kids.
Many of us travel the world on Dartmouth study abroad programs, living the good life and taking trains to various European cities, while our parents often fund our $10,000 excursions and help with pocket money as well.
It seems we are not sure whether we are more inclined to work with Vice President Al Gore in Washington D.C. next spring, or go canoeing and camping during those 10 weeks on the Connecticut River. Or, whether we should come back for our internship with the United Nations in the winter, or stay in Paris and work at a cafe.
The problem is, each and every one of these choices is enticing; this, in essence, is the nature of our transition. To be or not to be. An adult, that is.
Unfortunately, we have about as little choice in the matter as the two 11-year-olds in South Carolina. Eventually, for them, the category "boys" won over the category "forts" and soon, for us, the label "adult" (and all its responsibilities) will pound the label "crazy college kid" sufficiently into the ground.
The point is, live the transition to the fullest -- and then move on. Work in Paris and go canoeing. But return to work that job in Washington D.C. or New York City. We are the men and women who will shape the next generation. We will deal with the issues of welfare and poverty, racism and classism. We will work to create a balanced budget, treaties of peace and educational reforms.
In fact, we are the men and women who will give birth to the next set of girls and boys who will be unable to decide whether to build forts or write love letters. In that light, adulthood does not seem quite so bad.
So as we sit at the river docks in our transition world, let us look to the future and rise to the challenge of making the real world a better place to live and an easier place to build forts.