Come Together

 The guy who was my first manager at Arby's way back when I spent my gap year slinging roast beef sandwiches at an unwitting public had this little piece of non-beef related wisdom for me: "Don't go to college to party. It costs too much."

The following year I went to college and callously avoided his advice. These were the eighties, after all. I wasn't going to be stuck in my dorm room studying art history when it was Beatles Night at Bennie's Basement. Dollar pitchers all night long. There was a life waiting for me to live/destroy out there. What were grades but an arbitrary judgement placed on my by the man for some bureaucratic record keeping that was no true measure of the depth of my knowledge. 

If I had been that self-aware at nineteen, I probably would have found some other way to display it. 

Like protesting. 

No friends, I am sad to tell you that all that youthful idealism was wasted on my youth. I did not attend anything resembling a protest until after I had graduated and had all that time to pursue my political and social activism. 

Right about the time I sobered up. 

Which brings me to the youth of today. It seems that I am currently reading daily reports of youth unrest on our college campuses. Protests at Columbia University have brought the institution the kind of national attention that no administrator wants. A surge last week in antisemitism on campus and pro-Palestinian protests on and near campus have proved to be a focal point in our nation's fractured ability to "just get along." So much so that Rabbi Elie Buechler, associated with Columbia University’s Orthodox Union Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, sent out this warning to the school's mostly Orthodox Jewish students: “It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved." 

Improved reality. Sounds like something I was working on when I was an undergrad. 

Or maybe they should bring back Beatles Night at Amity Hall Uptown.