Tusculum College - Tusculana Yearbook (Greenville, TN)

Page 115 text:

But all that was secondary, for Tusculum had taught me the single most important thing in my brief life: I learned to learn . . . and to love learning. The diploma is secondary, only a symbol of the knowledge that was mine. I could lose the diploma. . . but the knowledge is mine forever. If l've totally confused you at this point, allow me to use an escape that I have patented over the last eight years of paper writing: I shall quote. I shall quote T. H. White, from his immortal The Once and Future King. It seems that Wart, or young Arthur, is troubled about life, much the same way that I was troubled about my diploma this morning. He goes to Merlin the Magician to seek advice: lk lk lk lk HI! wk Ik Ik III Ik III III lk HI! II! Sir Ector has given me a glass of canary, said the Wart, and sent me to see if you can't cheer me up. Sir Ector, said Merlyn, is a wise man. Well, said the Wart, what about it? The best thing for being sad, replied Merlyn, be- ginning to puff and blow, is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then -to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn - pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics - why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough. III III lk lk lk ik II! Sk ik Ik lk III lk Ik ik The speech ended there in Camelot, and leads here, to my apartment in Greeneville. I live over a garage on the side of a wooded hill. There are wild roses and wild strawberries and wild raspberries and honeysuckle that rolls down the side of the hill and hits you with a scent that could knock you over on a june morning... all vying for space with my tomato plants. My tomato plants had the blight, but I recently learned how to dust them, and they're doing quite well now. Perhaps l'll learn to plough someday, too. I work at a radio station now, hardly proper use of my degree. But it's something l've wanted to try for a few years now. It's a pleasant occupation. 111

Page 114 text:

The End An old neighborhood ritual of the editor's, upon the reaching of the end of anything, consists of a silly exer- cise in which two comrades in the terminating en- deavor look each other in the eye and gravely an- nounce, in unison, This is it. Unfortunately, the media of print and photo have certain limitations. Nonetheless ...... this is it. Tusculum has been enjoyable, to say the least. It's also been reasonably educational. For those of us who managed, somehow, to live through three years of turmoil and an additional year of limbo, the editor wishes to express to you a very special 'this is it.' ak Ik lk Ik Ill wk wk wk wk III Ik at Ik lk HI' Upon graduating, I had thought that it might be appropriate to say something significant to my parents and the rest of my family, but, as things would have it, my mother wished to discuss things such as my personal appearance and my employment status Uvlothers are like that, yeah . . .they arei. But I knew what I would have said then, and I know what I will say now, and the two are much the same thing. I've wanted to include in my thoughts here in the annual as a matter of preservation. Enough of the people at Tusculum have felt the way I have, and our thoughts would be a good thing to have down, in writing, so that when the Tusculum people of 'I972-73 have children of college age they'll have some sort of a reference point concerning their state of mind back when they were spring chickens: I had thought, the imaginary speech was to have read, that upon graduating, upon receiving my de- gree, I was to be filled with a profound revelation about life, about the future. Instead, I found myself feeling about the same as I had before - dazed and confused, like a fourteen year-old confronting his first blemish. The diploma didn't carry any special message other than, 'This paper certifies that the bearer has completed four years of study successfully enough to be called a college graduate' So, family, I did what I have been doing for quite some time now - I reacted like a crazy college kid, posing for pictures with my best college friends, the three of us holding our diplomas before us in a pose reminiscent of Kellogg's Corn Flakes ads in the Saturday Evening Post. Now, perhaps this activity of mine bothered you... in fact, it even bothered me for a while. But later in the afternoon, while conversing with one of my favo- rite backporch philosophers, I suddenly came upon the truth about my diploma, and the truth of my edu- cation as whole. Granted, Tusculum had taught me the finer points of understanding William Faulkner, Tus- culum had taught me the reasons why clay attains cer- tain properties after being fired to certain tempera- tures, Tusculum had even taught me about the world of small-time politics. 110

Page 116 text:

I'm surrounded by some wonderful friends here, even though this is the summertime now and most of the people at Tusculum have gone, some never to return again. I'll miss many. And that constitutes my wish for all those who read this . . . from typesetter to distinguished alumnus from years gone by. May you all discover pleasant occu- pations, at which you are surrounded by many good friends. lk Ik III Ik Ik lk wk wk Ik Ik Ik ak lk Ik ik If you hadn't noticed by now, the editor has ne- glected to dedicate this book yet. Now is the time. Some might be offended by my choice, however, I offer no apologies. At this point, people who are offended by the emotions of others aren't worth apology. A classmate of ours made a few mistakes over the last few years. Actually, most of us at Tusculum made similar mistakes, we were simply lucky enough not to get caught. Now, as I write this, he is preparing himself mentally to pay for these mistakes. He just might need a reminder of who all was there when it all was happening. I hope this annual will help. lim, this book is yours. WGDIune, 'I973 Special thanks and a tip of the Hatlo to: The 3rd Floor Burns Photo Shop Dave 84 Buffy Ianet and Wendy L. M. Bill Stoess of Delmar jack Daniels COld H75 112