Even if you had a good time doing them yourself.
by Peter MeinkeYes, the mouse you found
is broken snapped out of breath
by the copper rib and yes
we all break later or
sooner in the trap of death…
When I was in college, our fraternity (a compatible group of lively sinners) lived in a comfortable pub, known as the Deke house, not far below the college’s famous three-storied chapel, with a three-faced clock keeping its twitching eye on us. We were told it was the only three-storied chapel in America, but none of us ever checked this out, being more interested in avoiding chapel than in researching historic architecture.
Once — shortly before our time — the clock began ringing 13 times at noon, and students could get away with skipping required chapel because it was apparently haunted. But after a while the puzzled building inspectors noticed some bright marks on the old bell: some sharp-shooting student was firing a .22 rifle from Middle Dorm, with perfect timing, through the small opening in the bell tower. The shooter — never identified — only fired at noon because, the story goes, he wasn’t sober enough at midnight.
In the 1940s and ’50s fraternities were built into college life, and the question wasn’t “Would we join?” but “Which one?” Many of us, myself included, were used to this, having belonged to fraternities in high school. My high school fraternity seemed mostly like an athletic club, but my single specific memory of it involves a very bad evening.
Five of us were in a Jeep driven by a 16-year-old with no driver’s license; in the other front seat his brother was warning him about the gravelly curve in front of our little town’s railroad station. In the back seat, a blindfolded boy sat between me and another fraternity member. It was Initiation Night.
The car started to tip over in what seemed like slow motion. I had time to take off my glasses and slip them inside my shirt. The Jeep had a cloth top, and I could see the curb coming up toward my head, and right after that I blacked out. Apparently the car skidded on its side for 30 feet before hitting a lamppost and turning upside down.
Fate is fickle, punishing some and letting others off the hook completely. Among the five of us, not counting some spectacular bruises, there were only two broken bones (one arm, one leg), and one concussion (mine). The two youngest — the driver and the blindfolded initiate — had no serious injuries.
This memory floated up because, looking at the Chapel on my college calendar, I thought of The Three Things I Did When I Was Young That I Didn’t Want Our Sons to Do. I feel guilty, because I enjoyed all three: football, smoking, and fraternities.
I still have close friends from my fraternities, and always look forward to seeing them and laughing about the wild old days; and I remember how smoking got me through some tough and important times, including my Ph.D. oral exam at the University of Minnesota where my inquisitors also smoked, so at the end of my trial the room had the visibility of downtown Beijing at rush hour. And I still like to watch football, remembering our hopeless high school team, and the excitement of Saturday afternoons, charging madly downfield to almost certain defeat that seemed somehow totally worthwhile.
Our boys never joined a fraternity or smoked or played football, though they managed to break a few bones anyway; but I feel in general they’re much healthier (not to mention bigger and stronger) than I’ve ever been. We wish them, and our daughters, long, healthy and happy lives. Jeanne and I gave up smoking around 1980, and have already lived longer than we thought we would. I sometimes think that the Chapel’s twitching eye may still be watching over me, so I better watch my step. Or maybe it’s that sharpshooter. He’s out there somewhere.
On the other hand
we do after all live forever
till we die
and after that
who wants to live forever?…
—Both quotes from ‘The Mouse You Found’ by Peter Meinke, from Trying to Surprise God, U. of Pittsburgh Press, 1981.