United States Naval Academy - Lucky Bag Yearbook (Annapolis, MD)

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We were, at one point, thirteen hundred and ninety-six strangers. It seems so long ago now. Can you remember ... a hot, clear June day . . . the unevenness of the winding antique streets . . . the antic ipation . . . And what about the yard? Can you still remember how sweet-smelling and cool it was in the shade beneath the high trees between Bancroft Hall and the Sampson Mahan-Maury complex . . . how the heat from Farragut Field distorted the bay and fieldhouse into shimmering visions . . . how hopelessly immense it seemed? Can you still visualize your squad leaders as they were that day? Can you hear the buzz of hair clippers . . . feel the warm breath of summer ' s breeze on your newly shorn head. Have you jotted it all down and filed it away on mental note cards? The records check-in. The medical check. Box issue. Bag issue. The roommate. Swearing in. Goodbye. Dinner. Welcome. Marking. Stowing. Lights out. Bed. The first day. Do you still have it in your mind? It ' s only four years past now. And next year, five years from now, ten more years from then, what will you remember? What mark did you leave on the other thirteen hundred and ninety-five persons you could have known? How did you affect the Navy and the Naval Academy? What has all of this meant and done to you? What imprint has been left? I

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Time, Time, Time, see what ' s become of me As I glanced around for my possibilities I was so hard to please, Paul Simon

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Imprint. How long will it last? Any of it? Time will tell, time. We carelessly cast all of our efforts into the boundless sea of time, never looking at them twice. In the cyclic tides they are buffeted, eroded, and eventually discarded far up on the beaches of some distant future. Will you recognize those remnants when you chance upon them? Or will they be just more flotsam, undistinguishable from all the rest? Time will tell. Time. It ' s funny how it slips by, never giving notice of its passage. It seems we ' re always looking ahead, counting the days to every weekend, the next leave. Army, ring dance, graduation, and any other special occasion. It didn ' t start that way. 28 June 1967 wasn ' t just one thousand, four hundred, and forty days away from graduation. It was a special day, unique in its own way, anticipated, savored, and tucked away for future reference. But, somehow, somewhere, sometime along the way the uniqueness wore off and all the days blurred into a featureless sameness. Think now, what do you remember? Do you have the vague impression that you lost something? Try it again. Think of each day as a new and separate experience. It was.