Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Books

Ivory Tower
Bearly reading
When a UC-Berkeley professor put the world's favorite Zen bear on her summer reading list, the Pooh hit the fan.
By Carlene Bauer
[06/23/99]

Reviews
"Killer in Drag" and "Death of a Transvestite"
The hopelessly inept transvestite filmmaker was also, it turns out, a hopelessly inept transvestite novelist.
By Greg Villepique
[06/22/99]

Dear Mr. Blue
True love or just chemical imbalance?
I can't get the lover I abandoned 25 years ago off my mind. Why does this torment me so?
By Garrison Keillor
[06/22/99]

Book Bag
Other pasts, other places
The author of "Possession" recommends five unforgettable historical novels.
By A.S. Byatt
[06/21/99]

Reviews
"Love Is Where It Falls"
A gay actor recalls his 11-year "passionate friendship" with a straight woman 40 years his senior.
By Daniel Reitz
[06/21/99]

Complete archives for Books

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

When we were sure the air was clear of falling furniture, I went over to investigate. The recliner was done for. Its back had split apart from the seat. Still, its upholstery was flawless. It had been in working order before it was dropped from the dorm stairwell.

My friends and I were on campus a few weeks after graduation to scrounge furniture for our apartment. This was the final rite of what my roommate Brooke calls "Hippie Christmas": that time of year when college students at Hampshire and the other colleges in the area go home, abandoning boxes upon dumpsters of stuff -- jeans, shoes, dog-eared books, ratty toys, lamps, binders, futons, underwear, rugs, cosmetics and the occasional stereo speaker or computer. Some of this junk makes it into college-provided charity bins. But students leave an equivalent amount behind in their rooms, despite cleaning fees. The sheer volume of it all is astounding.

See what books are in the news at BARNES & NOBLE

Brooke and I first set off for nearby Smith in her battered Plymouth a week before graduation. After a few false starts, we found the college's giveaway bins in dorm lobbies. The first house yielded boots, jeans and a complete set of plaid flannel sheets. Brooke couldn't help exclaiming out loud, though we were trying to be furtive, "I can't believe this," she sputtered, checking the tag on a shirt. "J Crew. Eddie Bauer. This stuff is almost brand new!"

Sifting through students' leavings has an anthropological appeal. You start to see patterns. A surprising percentage of Smith refuse was made up of brand-new items, tags still attached. Mount Holyoke students gave away clothes more worn than Smith's, but dressier. It was a change from Hampshire, where the hippie and punk populations wear their clothes until colors fade, seams melt apart and there are no more salvageable parts to incorporate into another makeshift dirndl or anti-corporate patch. The stuff that hits the free bins is mostly unusable. (There is something charmingly earnest in the way Hampshire students commit their rags and underwear to charity, loath to throw them out when they're sure someone can use them.)

Next page | Caught pillaging by a hostile philanthropist