reconstructing the deconstruction

​ A photo archiving project has led to this. No, not this picture specifically -- although this picture as well as any highlights the process. In this house where we live, this suburban Garrison colonial, this place where we have lived for nigh on twenty years now, where the kids grew up, there are boxes and envelopes and folders and containers with the effluvia of daily life, even the dead art of physical communication (letters, postcards, notes). It is, in a way like an archaeological dig. The shards of pottery and the scribbled drawings of a lost civilization. Although that civilization is but a few years old. Filling in the missing pieces. What were we thinking? This picture, above: A fellow named Chuck Arris. Here we are at Boston University, late winter of 1969. This would have been after we got our grades which totaled 3.75. Together. I had a 2.0, Chuck a 1.75. We were draft bait. Our grades would have been a direct reflection of the amount of time we spent studying. Which was but a small percentage of the time we spent drinking and carousing. Not in a wild way. No: worse. We only were learning how to carouse, just having escaped the tentacles of the Jesuits (Chuck) and the Christian Brothers of Ireland (me.) Unfortunately for he two of us, we did learn.