 Author's program note. It is 5:35 a.m. here in Cambridge and the day threatens to be gray, overcast and wet (at least so far), not up to the radiant holiday standard we're used to on a plu-perfect springtime day. But the scene outside my window is evocative and even solemn, the light filtered, the trees outfitted in pristine green, every new leaf touched by dew present and accounted for. It is beautiful, rivaling any bucolic scene anywhere on Earth, any painting by John Constable. One is always surprised by this, so much so unlikely in the ordinarily bustling city round about. It is quiet, peaceful, serene on the Common now, but only now. We will in a few hours host a very mixed bag of parents of Harvard graduates, their families, claques and followers in from anywhere and everywhere. Commencement activities, you see, start today and culminate on Thursday in the iconic Yard across Massachusetts Avenue so close I can almost lean out the window to touch it. Why are the festivities so long? My bet is that it takes so long to shake down all the graduating seniors, their parents and, of course, every alumnus still on this side of the grim reaper. I'm sure you understand that you cannot just tap Mr. Big Bucks, Class of '68, on the shoulder and say "Hey, bub! Pony up, you old windbag!" That is not recommended procedure. Instead, you must have the president herself offer him a most amicable greeting, get him to down a few glasses of cordial spirits and listen with exquisitely feigned nearly angelic sincerity to his interminable, inexhaustible, self-congratulatory tales; the proven, practised pounce following as a matter of course... a whopping donation following that and the Mr. Big Bucks wing of a suitable edifice which could now proceed, the space already designated for chiseling the old bugger's name for posterity. No wonder Harvard presidents have to take a holiday after this week... it would be astonishing if they didn't. Oprah is speaking this year, and I'll be going to this single event, carefully eschewing every opportunity (and there are many) to find my pockets lightened in the manner above mentioned. It is like going to Las Vegas and not gambling, difficult but by no means impossible. So cash donation or not, attending is my privilege as an alumnus, but I have not made any use of it for years. But this year, for Oprah, I intend to be present and cheer her and her many achievements to the echo. I shall probably attempt to shake her hand and look her in the eye, uttering my sincere compliments. However my balance is not all it once was and what a kaffafle there would be if I fell into her arms and came to a soft landing on her much exposed poitrine. She would be surprised, of course, who wouldn't be? However, she might well like it; 66 I may be, but I still have my charms and shreds of an ardor once notable. One of my other so far unused Harvard privileges is the right to be married in the chapel of University Church. I assure you I am still young and green enough to make use of it ... and confound lesser men as well as my heirs whose response to such news would surely come straight out of Charles Dickens where those who wait in certainty at the end find their great expectations crushed and overawed by the sap which still runneth even when the tree is gnarled and scarred by the business of staying alive. But this is still not my subject for today or the reason why grown men from down the road apiece will appear in their (not very accurate) togs purporting to look like the blue and buff uniforms and tricorne hats worn hereabouts in 1775 by lads who came not to commemorate a successful revolution but to stake all on forging one, an event anything but certain, the stuff of treason, the noose, and the lash -- until their side won and they got to call the shots, including what was righteous "history" and what wasn't. Those who come today come to re-enact, not to act. And, I feel sad to tell, had the originals done such a trifling job we'd all be singing "God Save The Queen" this Memorial Day. Cambridge, what with Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and so many other fine collegiate institutions (though these are always overshadowed by the two biggest guys) has opportunities to burn. Thus instead of regretting the loss of so many "might have beens" spoiled Cantabridgians continue year to year happily wasting what for most any other city in the Great Republic would be the basis for enhanced civic pride, enthusiastic endeavor, and strenuous outreach to maximize such a benefit. I think, for instance, of one of my several alma maters (there are twelve such), the University of St. Andrews. It is Scotland's oldest university (founded 1413), far, far older than Harvard (founded 1636). It has in its long life undergone many seasons of want and penury. These would have undone lesser folk and their objectives, but not in Scotland where blood can indeed be squeezed from a stone. I am of Scottish heritage myself and I write of this often necessary skill with consummate pride... an example which has helped me continue and overcome more challenging times and troubles than I can recall. Thus, the Solons of St. Andrews turned the mere fact of their longevity into coin of the realm. How? By creating a colorful parade that includes its tradition-mad students dressing up (and as accurately as possible, too) like the great figures of history associated with the university. These include the woebegone Royal Stuarts, high aristocrats, word slingers, military potentates, statesmen and plutocrats. Each has added his measure and so helped create the great university which has, often against all odds, grown old and respected despite its infelicitous location hard by the unforgiving and inhospitable North Sea which has over immemorial time perfected its climactic torments. There is nothing on Cambridge's civic calendar, nothing on Harvard's, like the Kate Kennedy parade through the streets of St. Andrews. You may say, so what, and perhaps dismiss the matter by singing a few bars of "Ca sera sera" (though I hope not quite as over sugared as Doris Day's rendition). But (perhaps because of my Scottish descent) I like to derive all the benefits from any situation. Some call this niggardly. I say it's merely superior husbandry of scarce resources. Take the Common itself. For years during my long tenure here the Common was treated as scarcely more than open air urinal (no less pungent for all that) and doss house where the homeless and drifters marked their living place by flattened card board boxes, handed down amongst the lost and just passing through like so many tattered and odoriferous heirlooms. In short, for years what should have been the verdant heart of a great city was a noisome menace, smelled rather than visited. And this continued until I, who reside parkside, said "basta!" and called the slothful, uncaring civic officials who were responsible but did nothing. In the face of their massive indifference even my needle sharp messages were not immediately successful. It is for such exasperating, challenging moments that the word "persistence" was created. And so day after day after day after day at precisely the same time I called mayor, councillors, police and park authorities. Each of them came to know me well; "Yes, Dr. Lant" soon became their mantra... and progress, glacial at first, lead to success although even to this day, many irritants removed, the whole cannot be regarded as "finished" for many details, small and large, remain to be attended to. However, one needs a greater objective and inspiration than these odds and ends can provide... ... mine is the desire to see better Memorial and Independence Day parades marching down the streets bordering the Common... Waterhouse Street, then Garden Street, then Massachusetts Avenue through Harvard Square, a place every educated person in the world visits once in her life, a place pulsating with the combined energy of the young who aspire and adults who have already left their mark and done their bit to make the world a better place. Right now these parades are harum scarem, not merely amateurish but an embarrassment.There's absolutely none of that eclat, efficiency, organization, panache and spit-and-polish that a place as famous as Cambridge should have in every endeavor, but so often doesn't. And as for those re-enactors and their popguns... the less said the better. Well now I've worked myself into what my grandmother called a "state". Far worse than that, I realize that if I want better parades, polished and proud, the best Americana, I may be forced to do more than complain, may be forced indeed to interject myself into whatever organizations are responsible for these eye-sores... and the people running the petty fiefdoms that produce them. These worthies, of course, will be ecstatic to see me and hear what I've got to say... not. Hopefully I can learn to live with this mediocrity that ambles rather than marches past my door, but I doubt it. I can't fool myself. Every notable idea starts in the mind of one soul who realizes if you want it done right, you must do it yourself; my grannie taught me that, too..... Very well, but if I must volunteer myself as I did in the matter of the Cambridge Common, I shall insist on three things: that the genius of John Philip Sousa, America's bandmaster, be the rousing standard to which we dedicate ourselves, that "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (1897) be played to indicate the parades have commenced, and that a washed and highly polished convertible be made available for my place... prominently identified as ""The Nudge of Cambridge." Modesty prevents me from asking for anything else. ""Hurrah for the flag of the free! May it wave as our standard forever..." especially in Cambridge. |
