Rube’s Cube
1. Early in freshman English we were told to expect an exam on Shakespeare’s sonnets the next day. So I stayed up all night in the United Café on Chapel Street memorizing about two dozen of them. In class next day I was astonished to see my classmates with their books wide open. I felt suitably foolish, but boy, did I know those sonnets. I focused on number 29, if you want to know – “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes…”
2. My two freshman-year roommates in Lawrence Hall (both amiable, with nothing remotely in common among the three of us) thought for a while it would be amusing to have afternoon sherry-sipping hours, campily affecting our version of sophisticates. That was about as raw as we got, and it didn’t last long. But on another occasion someone got hold of a bottle of hard liquor (we were still underage at that time, so I was impressed). I’d never drunk anything stronger than beer and bad sweet wine. But with the rye, I think it was, I got seriously loaded, and so unpleasantly sick, that I thank the experience for making me aware of the red line I knew not to cross again, or at least, if I did, not to be surprised.
3. Several of us freshmen were standing around with the brilliant, glamorous, exciting young historian, Charlie Garside, one of the memorable lecturers in History 10. We were drinking cocktails. At some point the subject was Walden Pond. I can still hear myself piping up: “Who was Walden Pond anyway?” And I can still feel the cringe when a dozen wondering eyes briefly found me out.