The Houghton jones

—“Wait a minute!” I yelled to a cute young girl at my supermarket’s service-desk.
She turned and started walking away.
“Don’t go anywhere yet,” I yelled. “Turn around and lemme see your sweatshirt.”
It was purple, and said “Houghton College .”
“Class of ’66!” I said.
Her father was with her; she was embarrassed.
“Was it worth it?” he asked.
“Awfully glad I went there,” I said. “Found my wife there, and she was extraordinary. 55 years later Houghton still rings in my head.
I can still recite Shakespeare’s 116th Sonnet from memory, and I know what the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is, and also the Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan.
And you can be sure any text I do will be properly spelled and fully punctuated. That’s Houghton’s legacy: namely ‘GET IT RIGHT!’”
The girl was embarrassed. I bet that sweatshirt goes in her drawer. Her father was saving her — I bet he also was a Houghton-grad.
I revisited Houghton for our 50-year class reunion. We were known as “the radicals;” the ones who supposedly turned Houghton around.
Houghton was overly judgmental before us, but we challenged that.
And it wasn’t just we sinners. It was also the zealots.
We were the cusp of the ‘60s college revolution. It’s like after us they gave up!
Houghton is an evangelical college. People wonder why I went there. It was the Great Compromise with my hyper-religious father, who wanted me to attend Moody Bible Institute in Chicago like he did; and so become a Bible-Beater.
But in 1962 Moody was not a four-year college, and I wanted a BA. We compromised because Houghton was a four-year evangelical college. I also gained friendships among Houghton students on the staff of a religious boys camp in MD.
Houghton is much different than when we were there. Back then girls couldn’t wear shorts or sleeveless dresses.
And back then male students other than freshmen stayed in rooming-houses, not dormitories. Those rooming-houses were professors or college employees.
What I always say is Houghton went to-Hell-in-a-handbasket since I graduated. It’s no longer a self-proclaimed tiny island-of-decency. (Or is it?)
But the chimes in the bell-tower still ring off every hour like they did when we were there.
And Houghton is still evangelical, but I think more tolerant. They were tolerant to let me graduate.

• “Wait a minute!” is what I’m always accused of saying before I pontificate.
• RE: Sonnet 116: play the podcast readers! (It’s a link.)