Annapolis: A Fond Recollection
There are those events in everyone’s life, one may suppose, which are fondly and, perhaps, proudly recalled. And so we do call them to mind from time to time to delight our souls. There is one, accordingly, which I would recount on this particular morning as I reflected once again upon it.
It was the conclusion of Plebe summer at the Naval Academy in Annapolis in the year 1971. I was on my way out following a year of derelict academic (and general) performance and this was the grand conclusion of that notoriously difficult year for midshipmen. Glad as I was to be leaving the Academy, I was, nevertheless, appreciative of my friends there and glad to participate in the celebrations and farewell bidding. One of the highlights of that graduation celebration (for the first class men) was placing that hat on Tecumseh. I had taken a vigorous role in mustering my classmates to put the hat on the head of that statue.
Watching it all was a first-year professor in whose math class I had earned a D (or maybe it was an F). He was enthralled with the historic events and looked on as the Plebes – my classmates – came zealously to climb Tecumseh and place that hat on the head of the statue as has been the tradition for a hundred years. He was smiling and seemed quite taken by the festivities, the energy, the joy in celebrating the completion of a year of trial, tribulation, and bonding among the new friends who had come from every state in the nation.
I said goodbye to that professor, shaking his hand. He hadn’t known that I was leaving; he only knew that I had failed his math class. And then he said, astonishedly, “But you organized the … !” (something in reference to the Tecumseh event). And I smiled, nodded in acknowledgement, said good bye, and moved on with the celebration and goodbyes to my classmates.
Yes, I was pleasantly flattered by his response to me as we spoke our farewells. And that is one of those memories which comes often to the fore when thinking back with thanksgiving upon the highlights of my life.
28 July, 2021
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