[Alumni-chat] Recent Visit to YS

[toyboy (andy at svcable.net)]

I'm here at my father's home.  I'm his primary (and secondary and tertiary) caregiver as he slowly slides into various sicknesses that will ultimately only subside when he dies.  Pop's most important lesson (other than "Don't take any shit, kid.") was this:

"You see everything in black and white.  There are shades of grey everywhere."

When we say "THEIR sky" we miss the essential point that we are in a position, at this point in time, in which we share the sky (if we are lucky and I'm not sure we are as I have expressed ad infinitum in previous posts).  Is the U the only group of cynics?  They hate us, we hate them.  Nobody gets anywhere.  It's a waste of energy.

Hopefully, it won't end with a kind of "if we can't have her nobody can" mentality.

Deb '83

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I know no one else will thank you for this post Deb, so I will. Thank you.

With all due respect Lesley, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find anything wrong in "corporate liberalism" as you coin it. For me, to think that a legacy of Antioch College is being spread in some manner to those in the working world, is nothing but a good thing. I know you didn't necessarily mean it in this respect, but it is just too easy to throw poor Antioch College as some sort of bullwark against "creeping corporatism" or whatever paranoic version of the post-modern world you wish to cherish. And that is just as much "negative thinking" as those of use who might have a critique or two against the College itself. I'm happy that McGregor exists, as I am for the other Centers. They're doing good things. I still wish the Law Center in DC were open. It heartens me to know that people exist in the Corporate world that have undergone an Antioch education. (And yes it is an Antioch education.) The University isn't the enemy per se. Yes, there can be found this or that instance of
infringement on the College as Bob points out. But I find such arguement more crying over spilt milk and not very relevant.

So for, the only thing we all seem to agree on is a change of governance, and "all" does appear to include the so-called enemy of the University admin and the BoT. Where we all don't agree is whether Antioch College can stand on its own given the direction it has insisted on over the past few decades. And for that matter it is still insisting on that direction!

As for the town being a caricature, I find that a bit cruel. Yes, there is a certain "stuck in the sixties"-ness about it. When I was there, it seemed no matter where I went 1960's rock was blaring in background speakers. (But then even at Krogers they were playing "Journey to the Center of Your Mind" in the background - everyone is hip after 4 decades.) Yes, businesses there are struggling, but they are here in Vermont and anywhere else you might care to name. Not to be too facile about it, but that's part of what you get for running a small business. It was true 75 or 100 years ago as it is today. It's a bit myopic to think that the town is struggling as an immediate effect of the College, altho' to be sure, there would be more easy breathing with a class size larger than 200 or even 350. I read in the YS News, just after the announcement of closure, the owner of Dark Star Comics saying that the town had in some ways weaned itself from the College and had its own identity. I think
in some ways that is true. Jenny, at the Little Art, tells me that their upcoming Horror Film Festival is attracting interest from all over Ohio and even into Kentucky and Indiana. Amazing. Wonderful. The town itself remains unique if only for its myriad of small, self-owned shops. And it attracts people to visit for itself, not simply because Antioch College is there.

Here in a corner of Vermont, maybe 5 or 6 or 7 years ago, I remember noticing how many boarded up, empy businesses there were in Brattleboro, wondering, like alot of people, whether it was the Wal-Mart effect from the new one across the river. Then there were something like 5 or 6 or 7 tattoo parlors all existing at the same time, filling a void - some might say with another void, but at least there were warm bodies there. And now most those tattoo parlors are gone, and other young businesses have come to take their place. Some will survive, some wont. But the town chugs along. If nothing else, it is not entirely wrong to say that another effect of the Wal-Mart is a steadfast determination of singular creativity. As I type, plans are afoot for a Super Duper Wal-Mart a few miles down the road from the Wal-Mart. Poor Hinsdale - where Wal-Mart is - has pretty much nothing but a pizza parlor and a laundromat, while Brattleboro lurches into another phase of rows of small shops. Two more
long-empty shops are being renovated for something new right now. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

Things rise and fall and rise again. But they don't necessarily rise up just because of wishes. And hopefully they don't necessarily rise up in the same guise they were before the fall.

As for YSO being too small a town for competing factions.... er, where you been? That's been the way the town has worked for probably a century. 

Best wishes for you and your dad Deb. RE: his advice, I think he's been conspiring with my dad.  :o)