Who is this man, in his most flattering colonial Stetson, who is such a surprising likeness? Am I a pilgrim reborn or an out of work actor, forced to deny the outside world to visiting tourists?
So dude, you’re saying that you didn’t have a Gameboy or anything to pass the time on your way to the U.S.?
Dear boy, we weren’t going to the U.S., we were coming here, to Plymouth rock, the first colony in the New World, and in regards to this “Gameboy,” I had none, but I did whittle this fine miniature sailboat (available in the gift shop).
Whatever, ass.
Such is the torment I must endure every time I see pilgrims who look just like me. This is beyond the coincidence that your roommate looks just like Scarlet O’Hara, because unlike your no-talent ass-clown of a roommate I have a deeper connection. I was born on Thanksgiving. My mother’s belly button popped like a meat-timer and when she was sliced open like a plump turkey, I emerged, a most uncommon stuffing.
Well actually that’s not true. I was born on November 28, which occasionally falls on Thanksgiving, though I can’t be bothered to do the math to see when or how often it does. (If you just did it in your head then you can bite my turkey-tasting ass.) The point is that on this 381st celebration of Thanksgiving, I will turn 23.
The last time my birthday fell on Thanksgiving I was a naive and impressionable young lad. My family had traveled up to New York to spend the holiday with other extended present givers. On that glorious Turkeyday I was wrapped in a matching red scarf, mittens and ear-muffs before being whisked away to the intersection of Broadway and 34th. There, as Snoopy and Garfield loomed overhead, large like gods, my father whispered into my ear, “This is all for you, happy birthday Sam.”
The horrible truth was revealed to me later, when in front of my second grade class I showed my brand new Transformer and told of my adventure in the city. My teacher, Mrs. Vanpool, confused at first by the reference to “my parade,” said in sudden understanding, “Oh, you went to the Macy’s parade.”
“No. I went to my parade.”
“No dear,” she corrected, “that’s what it’s called, the Macy’s parade.”
I ran shrieking from the room and the flood of tears which washed over the bathroom floor was sopped up only by the revenge which I planned for Macy, the bitch who stole my parade.
But I digress.
What I’ve been thinking about is age. As a senior in college I feel old. Even more, as a 23-year-old senior in college I feel really old. Friends joke that I’m 23 going on 30, teammates refer to me as the old man and too many of the fairer freshmen are legally out of bounds. I’m concerned that I’m behind on the job hunt and each night another one of “the best days” of my life slips by.
But as I walked around the Yard this past week in a constant giggle at the prospect of a t-shirt which read, “eat pee. drink poo. go to yale,” I realized that I’m only 23-years-old. Beyond the fact that I have the sense of humor of a 12-year-old, I realized that I’m young. I’ll sip a soy-milk vanilla chai while discussing the more obscure points of Shakespeare, but I’ll also teehee at the prospect of chocolate pudding. Undoubtedly I’m young at heart, but my sprite legs also draw disapproving glares as I zip by adults in the yard; and I don’t lose sleep over the thought that there’s no room for an over-the-hill Harvard graduate, wallowing in his early-mid-twenties, in this weakened economy. Most importantly, my few extra years of wisdom have not weighed down my shoulders with obligation. My largest responsibility of the week is to hop on the good foot and do the bad thing at Harvard-Yale. I’ll inevitably be on top of some U-Haul, indignant that there is no longer space to stand on the can-littered ground. How about that for an argument for kegs? They are more environmentally friendly. Kegs are a reusable resource, while aluminum cans clog our waterways. Aluminum cans could be the next DDT, and the Harvard community just wants to do its part to protect the Spotted Owl for our nation’s children.
But I digress.
Sometime after this weekend I’ll graduate and sometime after that I’ll enter the “real world” where most likely my job will not be to flaunt my abs in Vegas’s hottest night spot. But where will I be when I once again have cause to stick my turkey with candles? Of course, I have no idea. Most likely my own little rug rodents won’t be old enough to appreciate the subtle humor that is malicious deception and dream crushing. I’ll be older, but most likely I will not look back on my college years and wonder how my life would have been different if I were a green 21 when I graduated, rather than a ripe 23.
In the meantime I’d like to offer thanks for the experiences which my few extra years have afforded. First, for the two disco-bopping months I spent in the ’70s. Good times man, good times. Second, for the year off I spent traveling in Italy, snowboarding in Colorado and working in D.C. Call me, we’ll discuss it over wine. And most importantly, my almost uninterrupted access to alcohol during my entire college career.
My greatest regrets are that I will have to settle to be only the fourth youngest person to make partner at Wasserstein, Weaver and Mathis-Lilley, that no one will be impressed when I’m the eleventh youngest American President and that the time for my attempt to be a pilgrim at a living museum may have past.
Samuel A. S. Clark ’03, a history concentrator in Currier House, chose to take an extra year in kindergarten when offered the option of going to a new school with the big kids, or “staying here to color.”
