Page 231 - WhyAsInY

toWarD a unifieD fielD tHeory
October 1962, when people believed, with good reason, that there was a significant chance that the world was about to end, she did not come running to my side to share a last few precious days, or even minutes, with me. On the less reasonable side of things, local rumor had it that a few hundred Amherst guys and a similar number of Smith and Holyoke girls would be sheltered in the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) headquarters in a series of bunkers in the Mount Holyoke Range in order to restart civilization—a better civilization, naturally. The almost incessant chatter about the impending selection process did not prove to be much of a motivator for her either. After Anita and I finished dating (in January 1963), I think that I had a bunch of inconsequential dates from both neighboring girls’ schools, good old reliable Brooklyn, and camp.
Living in North Dormitory would lead to a lot of bridge playing, there being many very good players living there as well, and would make attendance at “chapel” easy, as “chapel” was held next door in, not surprisingly, Johnson Chapel. It also contributed to and facilitated “cha- pel flashing” (which, like “chapel” itself, is not what it might sound like). Every weekday morning, other than Wednesday morning, from, I believe, 8:50 to 9:10, a member of the faculty would speak in Johnson Chapel on a topic of his or her (there was one female member of the faculty at that time) choosing.
Chapel talks were usually serious, sometimes humorous, sometimes both, but always at 8:50, a time that was seriously inconvenient for a student who stayed up very late, working: me. Worse, it was mandated that students attend chapel at least 50 percent of the time. So, some- times I would find myself crawling out of bed at 8:40, brushing my teeth, throwing some water in my face, and dashing to chapel, only to proceed immediately thereafter to my first class, all without so much as a cup of coffee or my standard breakfast, a cruller (powdered, of course). Atten- dance was taken at chapel. Every door was staffed by a volunteer with a clipboard and the task of recording the entry of students whose last names fell in a particular part of the alphabet. As I soon discovered— and as most of the student body had apparently already known—entries
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