The cup musings sent my brain off on all sorts of bizarre tangents, one of which ended in the realization that I do not actually have any friends leftover from grad school. In fact, aside from Dawn Hitchens (daughter of a founding faculty and still beloved if misplaced), I can’t even remember their names.
This fact is in stark contrast to the startling point that I’ve managed to keep track of so many Green Vests. What is that, the uninitiated might ask? To be simplistic: the kids who staffed the computer center.
They bedeviled my life, but I can tell you exactly what happened to KTS, Byron, Leopoldo, Pat, Phan, Brian Ventura, and even Rob (the one who lived under the floorboards).
The computer center staff of my acquaintance practiced their art in an ancient and misty past, where many of us still used typewriters. Consequently, to be a Green Vest was quite an achievement, and a position of power.
Many of the brethren were kind and gentle, though a few were tyrants. Desperate grad students on limited budgets using dodgy software to print, say, a thesis might find themselves in crisis under this regime – and I speak from experience.
I’m still disturbed when I remember that each laser printed page required a red ticket, purchased in twenty-five cent increments from the bookstore. Fine – except the bookstore was only open during the day, and the computer center never closed. Leopoldo was the most dedicated enforcer, his presence on a deadline evening the equivalent of a broken kneecap.
In significant contrast: KTS, at the time a vociferous enemy, not only attempted to teach me how to use complicated software – when he recognized that I was not capable, he sighed, sat down, and finished my statistics homework. Yesterday he wrote to invite me to stay in his new apartment in Brooklyn; our friendship has been a marvelous and intricate mystery stretching across two decades.
Buffy is the only Green Vest who truly vanished – hardly surprising though eighteen years after we last spoke, I still miss her. Anyone out there who knows a striking, hilarious person of any stated gender going by the name Taylor (perhaps but not necessarily with an English accent) – do tell.
The point of this post has been mislaid like my lost cup, but the original idea was this: whatever seemed most important in the moment has faded over time, while the peripheral experiences have become hugely significant. How alarming – and entertaining.