Word: enthusiasm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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None of these insights came quickly or easily, but I did make an important decision--to find a place for myself at Harvard, an activity or group that would rekindle my enthusiasm. In quick succession, I got into a play and found a boyfriend. The former was unquestionably the worst play I have ever seen or acted in, a pitiful attempt to set Antigone in a Latin American dictatorship. The bumbling, pretentious director and the egomaniacal cast ensured the failure of the production. The boyfriend was even worse, a deceptively suave manipulator who enjoyed hurting people and watching them squirm...
...worth your time to muddle through, however, and if you don't find something you like the first time, try again, and this time show a little spirit. Work up some enthusiasm. Freshman seminars, mostly taught by professors, are among the best opportunities you will have here. The courses are small, the professors often teach what they are currently working on or are most interested in, and the classes are specifically for freshmen--not condescendingly, but without presumption...
...Spradin as Coach Johnson has a fear-inspiring glimmer in his eye and a loud piercing voice; he's an army sergeant who's made it in the big leagues--the private sector. Jo Bob Priddy, the Baby Huey of the team, exudes a grizzly bear cuddliness and enthusiasm that brings his par out of the sterotype file from which it was lifted. And Mac Davis, despite his musical talent--or lack thereof--turns in an engaging performance as the team captain, alternately whooping it up with the players and then conforming to the wishes of the management. Davis...
...object of all this enthusiasm is a 40-lb. slab of foam-filled polyethylene, 12 ft. long and shaped like a surfboard, but with a sail attached. Such a wind-surfing board will support up to 400 Ibs. The craft was invented twelve years ago when two young Californians, Hoyle Schweitzer, a surfer, and Jim Drake, a sailor, one day began arguing the merits and problems of their respective passions. Surfing, Schweitzer complained, was too dependent on wave conditions; sailing, Drake sighed, was tied to wind conditions and required a time-consuming ritual of rigging the boat. So they retired...
With the decline of the manned program came an equal lack of enthusiasm for automated missions to explore the planets. In 1972, with help from the White House, Congress eliminated the "Grand Tour" project, which would have taken advantage of a rare (once every 180 years) planetary alignment to survey the entire outer solar system. Those missions that were approved often did not receive funding for complete analysis of the return data. Others--to map the moon and check it for metal deposits, to research solar phenomena, to rendezvous with Halley's Comet--never got past appropriations subcommittees...