Both the twins have lamps in their freshman dorm rooms. The lights are the small clip-on type, because my kids are more likely to do homework while curled in bed than while sitting at a desk.
That part’s easy to explain.
Fully expounding upon the lamps, though, requires digging up a little history. To be precise, it requires sixty-four years of history – starting when my dad, Robert, was assigned a college roommate, Richard.
Bob and Dick (of course they were Bob and Dick, this was 1960) got along well. So well, in fact, that they became lifelong friends. Dick married Lucy; they were both professors, and raised their son in New York City. Bob married Janet, and raised my sister and me out in the suburbs, on Long Island. Sometimes our family would go into the city to join theirs for off-off-Broadway theater, bridge, complicated intellectual conversation, and raucous humor. Sometimes their family would come and visit us for inept backyard croquet, barbecues, complicated intellectual conversation, and ridiculous word games.
Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, this inherited friendship felt unconditional to me. I didn’t have to behave myself, avoid interrupting, or sit out games and conversations for which I was chronologically unqualified. Most grownups in my world were Mrs. This or Mr. That -- but Dick and Lucy were just Dick and Lucy. They were relatives who weren’t relatives.
Fast-forward (VHS or cassette) to 1990. I was a newly fledged college freshman.
In recent weeks, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this time in my life, because it’s where both my kids are now. I’ll say nothing more about the qualities of my offspring, but speaking for myself… at the age of 18, I was awkward, book-smart, poorly equipped to be an adult, and anxious to make friends.
Those of us old enough to have grown kids tend to wax nostalgic about college, particularly regarding all the bonds we forged there. And yes, college is a great place to meet like-minded nerds with whom to share esoteric hobbies, idealistic worldviews, bad pizza, or questionable taste in music. What we tend to forget, however, is that four years of our memories have been smoothed and compressed by time. Almost everyone arrives on campus entirely friendless and alone.
What happens from there can be a matter of chance. There are no guarantees that the right people will cross your path immediately. It might take a while to meet someone who wants to commit the 300 quality hours that research1 suggests is necessary to make a really close friend.
Bob and Dick met serendipitously, but not as freshmen. They weren’t even part of the same year. I don’t know why neither of them had joined a suite with guys they already knew; perhaps it was a matter of how housing assignments for upperclassmen were handled at the time. In hindsight, this seems trivial. I know Dad had other friends at college. Dick, in the more than 50 years I’ve known him, has always seemed to be surrounded by camaraderie.
As for me, I made friends throughout all four years at college, but I was notably and astonishingly lucky on the very first day. At an introductory picnic, I met a particularly delightful person who lived just one floor down from me. Our Freshman Week activities were organized by dorm, so I immediately had the opportunity to spend a plethora of time with this fabulous human, Steve.
Steve and I got along well. So well, in fact, that we became lifelong friends. Steve married Manish, and they’re both professors; they live in Seattle. I married Jay, and although we live in Alaska, our kids have always known Steve and Manish via a lifetime of annual visits, silly word games, hikes, museums, cafes, messy craft projects, homemade Indian food, and complicated intellectual conversation. It’s always felt unconditional. They’re relatives who aren’t relatives.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Early in that first semester, a mid-sized package arrived for me in the mail. Just how early in the semester this occurred is a detail I recently retraced by virtue of a tidy box of my own hand-written letters that I retrieved from my parents’ house. In my second-ever weekly missive home I mentioned receiving the gift, so I know it showed up a mere nine days into my college career.
Steve was with me when I unwrapped it. Of course he was.
The unveiling revealed a desk lamp. Specifically, it was a classy green banker’s lamp with a bright bulb.
Was this from my parents, Steve wondered?
No, I said, explaining the return address. Maybe, I hypothesized, going to college was a milestone that merited this symbolic gift because Dick had been my dad’s friend ever since their own college days together.
I don’t recall Steve’s exact wording, but I do remember that he didn’t miss a beat. As we sat on the floor amidst the torn brown paper, he made a charming, hilarious, and ridiculously hypothetical promise.
Thirty-four years (plus or minus
nine days) later, both the twins have lamps in their freshman dorm rooms.
1Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal
of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278-1296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518761225
