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In 1982 the network evening news included a 1- or 2-minute commentary. It may have originated on CBS with "wise old guy" Eric Sevareid making sage remarks on one subject or another, and I suppose a remnant of this practice was the brief segment by the late Andy Rooney on "Sixty Minutes." In 1982, the comments were delivered by Bill Moyers.
On one early September Monday evening that year, Moyers described in detail his and his wife's Sunday before, as they drove their youngest child - a son, I believe - to his first day at college. The description was focused mainly on the drive home, the arrival, and the entry into the now-childless home. It was as touching a description of the "empty nest syndrome" as one could ever hope to hear.
That happened to have been the very day when I had delivered our older child - our daughter - to kindergarten.
...And the emotions were all exactly the same! The fear, the loss, the excitement, the pride: all just the same as Moyers had described.
My wife A----- sent Bill Moyers a note thanking him for his remarks that night, explaining the particular force it had had with us. A few days later, we received a Thank-you note from him along with a transcript of the commentary. It's still tucked up in L-----'s Baby Book.
2
My own first day at college was rather different from the one Bill Moyers described for their son. In 1960, I'd chosen to attend a university 1,100 miles away from my home. I took the train, and this was a period when the railroads were protesting the federal government's (right) decision to require them to continue passenger service rather than exclusively the more lucrative freight, so long as they hoped to use publicly financed and maintained tracks. They were protesting by having long, unpredictable delays in the passenger runs - not caused by weather or breakdowns or safety hazards (other than the competition for track time with the larger, faster freight trains, that is), just delays to discourage anyone from trying to travel by train.
So I arrived nine hours later than scheduled. (That, by the way, was the closest to on-time for any train trip I made between home and college; once we were a full twenty-four hours late!)
My Dad had mentioned to me that he knew two professors at the university I was to attend, one a former student and the other the father of a friend I'd had in elementary school. So anyway, I arrived with my large suitcase and a footlocker at the local train station expecting to tell a taxi driver - that would be my first cab - the name of my dorm, trusting he would know where it was.
But as I was standing there on the platform with my stuff, looking for a taxi-driver to ask to help me with my luggage, I heard my name called by a woman I didn't know who had a young man there with her. Yes, Dad had apparently arranged with his friend to greet me - the woman was his wife - and get me from the station to my dorm. I never really knew how they had known when to show up. But I was sure grateful for the help, and my former friend - who was soon going to be leaving for Harvard - managed to get the foot locker in and out of the family station wagon and up to my room.
That night, I was over-powered with strong emotion. In the darkness, I wandered down from the hill overlooking the main campus trying to get the lay of the land. There was no one else around that I could see. Finally, my emotions had welled up to a high enough pitch that I just began to run.
I ran down the lamplit pathways, and in and out of the tall old trees on the quad. I came to realize that what I was feeling was the joy of being free! Free of the "me" I had been, in response to (and in collaboration with) my parents and all the gazillions of people my parents knew in our hometown. Free to start my own life, building my own self.
Wow! I remember it so well.
3
The day our youngest - our son - went to Junior High was pretty memorable too. W----- himself has always been a very even-tempered guy, self-confident enough to be different from anyone else he knew, tall and good-looking, cheerful, soft-spoken.
At the end of sixth grade in June the year before, all the children had been taken by bus to the junior high they were to attend the next year, to meet the Principal and Vice-Principal and to have a tour. That seemed to be a wise tradition in our school district.
In addition, W----- and his fellow students were all invited with their parents in late summer to an orientation session at the "new" school (which in W-----'s case was actually the oldest school building in town). We met in the auditorium for a while and then went into the hall where we got a copy of W-----'s class schedule with the room numbers marked. We also got a school map, I seem to recall. There were older students on hand to help us find our way around.
So we walked from one classroom to the other and helped W----- find the most direct route in each case. We'd all been assured that there would be older student volunteers and of course teachers in the halls between classes that first couple of days to make sure no one got (or felt) lost.
It again fell to me to take W----- to school that first day. I asked him how he was doing. He said "Fine" in the familiar unruffled and perky manner. He had all the stuff he would need and was ready to go. As we drove toward the school, I asked if his mother had said where she would pick him up at the end of the day. He explained in his usual, patient way that she would pick him up in the same place where I would drop him off. After a while, I did notice that he seemed a little quieter than usual, but when I thought of something to say, in responding he was his usual self.
When the school was finally in sight, just before I made the last turn, W----- abruptly stiffened and made a worrying sound, sort of like someone asleep who was having a bad dream. I said something bland, like "It's not too busy. Orderly..." But by this time, W----- was moving his hands and legs rather randomly and saying, "Oh... Oh," or something like that.
I said I was going to go in with him. Everything was fine. He would have a good day. I cut right across a lane of traffic toward the teachers' parking lot which was just there, and said I'd park there and we would go in.
And just as abruptly, W----- moved in the classic way from which we get the phrase, "He pulled himself together."
"No," he said. "I'm going in."
I stopped. He got out and crossed the street, looking both ways, but not looking back at me... and disappeared up the wide steps. I was as proud of him as I had ever been.
Until those last couple of minutes, I had not been anxious, at all, either.
But that night I asked A----- how his first day had been, and she said, "Oh, just fine." And W----- at supper was his usual self. He didn't seem to remember his little momentary freak-out...
But I sure did.
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