Word: hand
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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ALMOST the first thing I did no entering Harvard four years ago was to shell out a few my parents' hard-earned dollars and join Students for a Democratic Society, then a relatively recent addition to Dean Watson's mailing list. I was soon taken in hand by a moustachioed radical several years my elder, with whom I spent a curious, concentrated week canvassing the freshman dormitories for political talent. We weren't too successful, if the truth be known, finding most of my classmates had their minds on P.T. credits and Gen Ed Ahf and the girl next door...
When it happened, I was driving through northern Scotland in a rented car, finding how utterly disorienting it was to work out of the right-hand seat. After a day of laboriously scanning Loch Ness for the Great Orm, I sat down with a British newspaper and friend to read "Police Arrest 179 at Harvard." It might have been any other school, save for the comparatively big play and for a few proper nouns. I had often been instructed not to use the word "campus" in connection with Harvard, for Harvard was not supposed to have a campus. But here...
...wandered down to Soldiers'' Field with a sandwich and several friend. Replete with a lot of equally idle speech and subsequent applause, the meeting seemed to have been packed by different faction. Down front of me I noticed one notoriously conservative classics teacher sitting all by himself, raising his hand dutifully at every opportunity to vote down the strike or against realizing one of the "demands"--as they were affectionately termed by their sponsors. Here was Athenian democracy minus such frills as property requirements, slavery, and demagogues with anything going for them. The meeting ended up endorsing the least compelling...
...Course Assistant. It was Bunny Largess, Visiting Professor of Half Truths, who formulated the now-famous rule on "choosing a course assistant." In Bunny's own words, "Make sure he is cruder, more reactionary, and basically less pleasant than even you are. Then give him a free hand." It is also important that the assistant be totally inept as a lecturer (ideally he should drool as well as lisp), and that he cast a favorable light on your physical appearance. [In the event that your academic credentials are likewise open to question, be careful to pick an assistant with ones...
Accomplishing, on the other hand, only begs more accomplishing. It is empty and unsatisfying. So what if Yale wins 17 in a row? It will want 18. So what if Yale wins its second title in a row? It will want a third. Accomplishing whets the appetite for consumption, for more and more meaningless consumption...