Fifty Years After
Written for the class book for the fiftieth reunion of the Wesleyan University class of 1976. Thanks to Karen Harmin for suggesting I write this. Titled with apologies to Alvin Lee. I’ve thought often about the expectations I formed of both my life and the future of our country at, and because of, Wesleyan. In many ways, my life has gone as I had hoped and expected. The country has very much not. We came to Wesleyan in the seventies. But the spirit of the sixties shaped us with its sense of optimism and possibility, the aspiration to a new kind of freedom, and the belief that we were on the verge of a radical step forward in our political, social, and moral lives. I began college with the idea of studying American politics to prepare for a career in left of center politics. My first American politics class, with… Continue reading