Oglethorpe University - Yamacraw Yearbook (Atlanta, GA)

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•■■■■ MOM CRIES, DAD ' S PROUD ' Oh, to Live Like a Swinger ' ByARTBUCHWALD Washington, IT ' S VERY HARD for many college students to live up to the roles they have been given by the mass media. What new spapers, magazines and television networks expect from students is more than most of them can de- liver. I discovered this when I was speaking at a IVtidwestern campus the other day. A student, whom I shall call Ronald Hoffman, seemed very troubled and I asked him what the problem was. MY PARENTS are coming up next week, and I don ' t know what to do. Why? Well, you see, I told them I was living off- -campus with this co-ed in an apartment. But the truth is that I ' m living in the dormitory. That shouldn ' t really disturb them. Oh, but it will. They ' re very proud of me, and they think 1 should have a mind of my own. Why my dad heard 1 was living off-campus with a co-ed, he doubled my allowance because, as he put it, ' Anyone who is willing to spit in the eye of conformity de- serves his father ' s support. ' I don ' t know what he ' s going to say when he finds out I used the money to buy books. IT ' LL HURT him, I agreed. What will your mother say? I don ' t know. She ' s been crying a lot since I wrote her about living with this co-ed, and Dad ' s been arguing with her that her trouble is she doesn ' t understand youth. Mom ' s likely to get pretty sore when she discovers she ' s been crying for nothing. Not to mention how silly your father will look for making her cry. Ronald shook his head sadly. The trouble with parents these days is they believe everything they read. Life magazine, in a ' Sex on the Campus ' article. made it sound so easy to find a co-ed to live with. Well, let me tell you, for every Linda le Clair of Barnard who ' s playing house with a male college student, there ' re a million co-eds who won ' t even do the dishes. THEN ALL this talk of students living out of wedlock is exaggerated? Exaggerated? When 1 got here 1 asked 10 girls if they wanted to live with me. The first one said she didn ' t come to college to iron shirts for the wrong guy. Four told me frankly that it would hurt their chances of finding a husband. Three told me to drop dead, and one reported me to the campus police. 1 was lucky to get a room in the dormitory. I guess it ' s no fun for a young man to pretend he ' s a swinger. You can say that again. Every time I go home, everybody wants to know about the pot parties and orgies I go to at school. The only thing that ' s saved me is that I ' ve seen ' La Dolce Vita ' twice. YOU HAVE to depend on your imagination? What college boy doesn ' t? Ronald said. ' There are more conscientious objectors among co-eds in the Sexual Revolution than any modern sociologist would dare admit. It ' s enough to destroy your faith in Hugh Hef- ner, I said. Look, I ' m not complaining, Ronald said. I ' m just trying to figure out how to explain it to my father. He ' s living his fantasies through me and I hate to let him down. ' WHY DONT you tell him the reason you can ' t introduce the co-ed you ' re living with is that she ' s going to have a baby? Hey, Ronald said, that ' s a great idea. It might cause Mom to cry again, but it will make Dad aw- fully proud. -(c1968.) 21 reprinted with permission

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