Now and Then

“Berkeley,” Lyndon said.

I wrote diligently in my notebook.

“And did you come here because of Professor Alderson?” I said.

“No,” Sheila said. “At least I didn’t. I hadn’t heard of him until I got here.”

“You?” I said to Lyndon.

He shook his head.

“Why did you come here?” I said.

“I liked the college,” Lyndon said. “It had a reputation for, you know, diversity and inclusiveness.”

Sheila nodded.

“I wanted to come to Boston, too,” she said. “You know? See what it was like?”

“Whaddya think?” I said.

The power drive on Chollo’s camera whirred in the background. The shutter clicked.

“It’s not as liberal as I’d heard,” she said.

“More repressive than we thought,” Lyndon said. “But we were naive, you know? Repression fl ourishes in every climate.”

“Even Cambridge,” Sheila said.

“So what drew you to Professor Alderson.”

“There was a lot of buzz,” Sheila said. “You know? I mean, he’d been in the movement since it began, almost.”

“Movement?”

“The fight against imperialism, and conformity,” Lyndon said. “The struggle for personal authenticity. The man was there. He was there in the sixties. He’s been there.”

I nodded and wrote yikes! in my notebook.

“The sixties,” I said.

“He was at Kent State,” Sheila said. “When they shot those students.”

I wrote 1970? in my notebook.

“He was with SNCC,” Lyndon said. “The Weathermen, everybody.”

“A hero of the counterculture,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Does Professor Alderson use his experience as a basis for his seminar?”

“He’ll hate it if you refer to him as Professor Alderson, ” Sheila said. “He wants to be called Perry.”

“Titles are elitist,” Lyndon said. “They reinforce an oppressive system.”

“Is there a Mrs. Alderson?” I said.

“If there were,” Lyndon said, “he would not call her Mrs., as if somehow he owned her.”

“Is there anyone with whom he is sharing his life?” I said.

“Perry shares his life with many people,” Sheila said. “I don’t think he’s ever felt any need to limit himself.”

“You folks married?” I said.

“We have committed to each other,” Lyndon said. “We need no stamp of acceptance from the state.”

“Do you fi nd that shocking?” Sheila said.

“No,” I said. “Do you happen to have a syllabus for, ah, Perry’s seminar?”

“See,” Lyndon said. “You just don’t get it. Perry, and by extension we, are no more bound by college structure than we are by governmental structure.”

I wrote no in my notebook.

“Any texts?”

“The texts are being written by events,” Sheila said.

“No textbooks? Grades?”

“The college has imposed pass/fail. But for Perry the only failure is the failure to be free.”

“So what is class like?”

“We talk about life today as it is unfolding,” Lyndon said.

“Perry helps us put it in historical perspective,” Sheila said.