One time, in Canada, when I was working as a sliced-bread slicer at the Wonder Loafery, I fell into one of those Everything"" conversations with an aged, eight-fingered Eskimo named Harvey.
Slicing as we spoke above the drone of the machines and under that harsh factory lighting,
Harvey and I slowly treaded past the meaning of life, meandered around God and man, waded through law and love and finally alighted upon death and the eternal march of time.
It was at this juncture that Harvey looked at his hands and remarked with general glum that some 50-odd years ago he had stood where I now did with all his digits intact and the open expanse of adulthood still far ahead of him.
""Them years just a-come and gone,"" he said as he slid yet another newly cut loaf in my direction. Then he paused to rub his knotty head with his withered hands and sighed, which I couldn't help but find a fitting summation of the life that had escaped him.
I quit working for Wonder that day, and have since vowed never to return to Canada, but that image of
Ol' Harvey slouched over his life's work as he reflected on his lost years still haunts me.
I fancy I feel something akin to what Harvey must have felt when I happen to be standing across the old beer pong table from some freshmen.
For though they doubtlessly have countless more of the same ahead of them and are even titillated by the idea of playing in a dorm room, experience has lessened the luster for me, and I regretfully have lost the thrill of the bounce and even the sense of the sweet justice of the swat.
I enter my final year here at UW with a sort of Chicago Bulls entrance theme à ¡ la Jordan to the Max playing in my head. But while the entire year still stretches out before me like a pristine bathroom soon to be soiled, I already find myself looking back upon my time here and examining my own body of work. And by body of work, I of course mean the photos I have been tagged in on Facebook.
You come to realize after all is said and done that it's all that really matters. You may have made scores of stupendous friends and a million fond memories. You might have worked two jobs and volunteered everyday besides and are still about to get that degree they say it's all about. Maybe you've walked home on a Sunday morning from every frat on Langdon and have the T-shirt collection to prove it. But if you can't point to a photo on Facebook with your name and mug on it to document the deed, does it really matter?
The answer is no, it doesn't.
I think it's safe to say that all seniors come to realize that the point of college is to accumulate an impressive album of Facebook photos that feature you and preferably other attractive people looking cool or funny or even more attractive than you may normally be. After that everything else is just icing on the cake. And if that's not what your parents told you when they sent you here, it's only because they're a little slow coming around to the whole ""MyFace"" thing.
And so I find it my Harvey-esque duty to warn you, all incoming frosh. If you do find yourself teeing up at the beer pong table this Friday or stealing some traffic cones on Saturday, you better make damn sure some girl with a camera is snappin' pics of that shit. Otherwise you might as well go slice bread in Canada.
Are you worried about your legacy as well? E-mail David at dhottinger@wisc.edu so he can introduce himself and tell you that you should be.
