I can't forget Matt Hill '08.
Matt arrived in Biloxi a few days before Beardsley and I. We only had him for a few weeks; unaware that other Dartmouth kids were coming, he'd made plans to teach screenwriting and film theory at a Yale program for high school students. (In characteristically Dartmouth fashion, he didn't know anything about what he was to teach prior to teaching it; he spent his Biloxi downtime reading the subjects' introductory texts.)
Point being, I never managed to work him into the column. He deserved better.
Human interaction is not easy; everyone has conversation parachutes, foolproof small-talk topics guaranteed to salve the terror of mutual misunderstanding. They target broad audiences: the "Who remembers '90s Nickelodeon cartoons?!" conversation works on our entire peer group, and the "Do you say 'pop' or 'soda'?" debate requires living in a region. (These topics also constitute the chaff of Facebook groups. The wheat: "Don't worry, Pluto: I'm not a planet, either.")
Another favorite: favorite Disney movie. In certain unsavory circles (every guy I know), this line of thought degenerates into "hottest Disney character." I'll save you the contemplation. Like American presidential races, there are only two legitimate choices: Jasmine and Ariel (post-flippers, obviously).
Enter Matt Hill. Like a glorious alternate-universe Ross Perot, Matt triumphed as an unlikely third party: Nala, the Lion King girl-lion.
"I gotta go with Nala, guys. It's the eyes."
No arguing with that.
It was all the more upsetting, then, when Matt had to leave. In this way, Hands On Gulf Coast is too reminiscent of Dartmouth: as with the D-Plan, the moment you cement a friendship is too often the moment he's leaving. Here and at Dartmouth, the tumult of comings and goings is disorienting. Detachment becomes a viable strategy, driving home the saddest people lesson: if you don't know them, they can't hurt you.
On a recent Friday morning, twenty of my new best friends left camp at the same time (they were volunteering through AmeriCorps, a federal service program). The night before, the impending mass departure led to a particularly emotional installment of our weekly open mic.
Volunteers told stories, played guitar and read poetry. Beardsley sang a song from "The Animaniacs" that rapidly names every country in the world, a tremendous party trick. I sat in the back trying to breathe, both because I was overwhelmed by the AmeriCorps exodus and because I was coming down from a column-enabling two-Nalgene coffee binge, and my heart was beating out of my chest.
Good people were leaving: Emily the art-school dropout, Andrea the fastest girl ever (to attend her high school). Brannon, a long-term volunteer in his eighth month of service, was not leaving. He'd seen dozens of goodbyes like this one; when I told him I was upset, he told me not to worry: I would soon be "desensitized" to the constant partings.
(Brannon story: I don't remember why, but he once affected a robotic heavy-breathing voice reminiscent of a certain Star Wars villain, to which I unthinkingly said "Hey, it's Dark Vader," a comment that goes from nonsensical to appalling when I reveal that Brannon is black.)
The open mic reached its finale, which is always the same: a performance of Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel." The song is our camp's anthem and alma mater. (It is not the only Hands On song, however: another is "Reverse Cowgirl," a brilliant faux-country song written by a former volunteer.) I've fallen helplessly in love with "Wagon Wheel." It has reached the deepest possible level of personal meaning, adding itself to my list of habitat songs: music that has everything I need to live. (My other habitat songs: Springsteen's "Thunder Road," "Still D.R.E." by Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dogg and Wilco's "Jesus, etc." Make your list!)
Like all good songs, that night's "Wagon Wheel" amplified everything loved and painful around me. Matt was long gone, more friends were leaving. I was facing the essential Dartmouth conflict, a struggle that escalates as the end of the term comes into sight: when people are always leaving, how desensitized do I allow myself to become?
Better put, how much should I give to relationships that are constantly at risk?
Maybe it was the caffeine or the music, but my answer was clear: everything I possibly can.
The soul-broadening work of volunteering -- the camp rituals, the desperate poor we help, the rough-hewn grace of the people I work with -- has fastened me to the moment, to seeing and feeling and doing as much as possible.
Volunteers will leave Biloxi, students will leave Dartmouth. If we never meet, departure cannot hurt. But then we never would have met!
The rub: it isn't just this term that's temporary. We die, too. My latest attempt to make the best of our pesky mortality is a concept I call the truck quotient: if I were run over by a truck tomorrow, how happy would I be with today?
Volunteering in Biloxi sports a near-perfect truck quotient. It isn't complicated. We help people during the day and hang out at night. Hard work, good music, crazy people. Who'd want to desensitize that?
E-mail Alex at howeas@gmail.com
