I got a reminder today.
You can try to outrun your past but it will always catch up with you. I got a call today from a bright young thing who wanted me to attend a 45th Reunion of my class at Mercersburg. I have no desire to go back. My roommate and best friend died at the age of 40, probably from drug propensities he acquired at Mercersburg in the sixties. When the Penn State scandal hit, I reached back to Mercersburg, wondering how seriously they took the fact of pedophile teachers, who were not numerous but were always somehow covered up, much after the fashion of the Catholic Church. They stonewalled me. Sergeant Schultzes all. “I know nothink.” Even men for whom I had such a lifetime of respect that I called them mister when I phoned them in my late fifties.
Life may be about loss, but it’s not about dismissal. I have written a lot about Mercersburg over the years. I sought feedback from the BYT about her experience as a recent graduate and what she had heard about the old times. She told me she’d heard it was a “dreary place.”
This is so ridiculously wrong that I emailed her what I suddenly realized was almost a book length volume of evidence to the contrary.
Part of which I would now like to share with my Mercersburg brethren and anyone else who cares.
When did Mercersburg get so rich?
Never watched “The Social Network.”
Sorry for all the no bottom-line promos. But I’m tired and my car battery is dead in the cold. I’m still just a Mercersburg boy.