Page 266 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
and Hinayana Buddhism; or Tillich and Barth; or Isaiah and Deutero- Isaiah; or resurrection theology and crucifixion theology; or the Pittsburgh Platform and the Pittsburgh Steelers; or Nietzsche and any- thing else. And I knew that Unamuno was not likely to be covered. He was, after all, from Smith.
The Comps were a notable event because I liked to shoot pool and had my own car. At about 9:30 p.m. on the night before Comps, I was shooting pool at Phi Gam instead of studying, when my friend Doug Wedel, a very smart former football player and track star from Missis- sippi, strode in. Wedel was an excellent pool player who had put himself through Amherst by winning tons of money playing poker with Northampton townies; he was a total rogue (in a good and loveable way, of course). I assumed that he wanted to shoot, but he didn’t, not that night.
Doug had an announcement of great interest to make and three vital needs to fill. He explained that the parents of a girlfriend of his had gone away, leaving their house in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, empty. She had gone to her house, and, as luck would have it, she was there that night with two friends from her house at Smith, Laura Scales, six steaks, and a good deal of vodka that she did not want to go to waste. Her par- ents would be returning tomorrow. She was therefore relying on Doug to find two of his friends—any two—and arrive that night. Thus, his problem was that he was short a friend and—oh, by the way—a car. He had just found one friend to volunteer to join the party, but that friend, Korbin, also lacked wheels. Now he needed another friend, someone who was up for a party and had a car: me, for example. He had never met his girlfriend’s friends and was unable to provide any significant infor- mation about them, like, for example, what they were majoring in. But he was pretty sure that there would be a good time had by all. What did I think?
Well, I told Doug, it sounded like a great opportunity, but I had Comps the next morning at 10:00 in Frost Library. “No problem,” said he. He guaranteed that he’d get me to Frost in time, and, to make sure that I wouldn’t be too tired to take the exams, he would drive my car
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