Page 241 - WhyAsInY

Chapter Seventeen
A as in Aegis; G as in Gnu
NOVEMBER 1963 – AUGUST 1964
In which our author learns about the end of time, the alphabet, the importance of loyalty, and the honor system.
Needless to say, there was only one event of real importance that weekend. Incredibly, in a mere instant, the world had changed, and whatever residue of innocence that had remained with us vanished along with our hopes. The apparent embodiment of the values that we thought inhered in our education and the energy that was our youth had been taken from us. We were stunned and for two days lived the death not only through the hypnotic nonstop transmission in black and white of accounts, pictures, interviews, maps, sketches, announcements, and voice-overs, all of which finally merged into a hum of silence, but also through the inexorable slow and steady beat of the drums, the drums, the muffled drums, which never stopped and did not merge into the hum of silence.
Somewhere out there, there lives a saint. Her given name is Mar- guerite Monack. I don’t really remember how Peggy and I met or, I’m embarrassed to say, when I last spoke to her. I do remember that she was at my side virtually from the time at which I called her at Holyoke to tell her of my decision through the time at which I packed my car and started the long drive home.
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