| ||||||
|
Arts & Entertainment  BooksComics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Books stories, go to the
Books home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Books Ivory Tower Reviews Dear Mr. Blue Book Bag Reviews - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The garbage of higher education | page 1, 2
As we wandered through the emptying dorms, trying to look like Smithies, Brooke grew visibly nervous. I was surprised. Her plucky confidence had convinced me this was something people did every year. "OK, if anybody asks," Brooke suggested, walking backwards like a tour guide, "my sister goes here, and she told us if we walked in this direction we'd find something to eat." The lie was too complicated to repeat to the concerned-looking Smith students we met. We knew we weren't doing anything wrong; we stuck to the free bins and trash containers and avoided anything that seemed too good to be true. Still, I got the feeling we were under surveillance. It wasn't clear whether we got looks because we seemed to be preying on wanted belongings, or because our watchers thought anyone diving excitedly into a barrel of unwanted pajamas should be closely monitored. While there are social routines for buying, there are none for gathering free things. So little in our society is free for the taking. (Think of hotel shampoo bottles, or Abbie Hoffman flinging dollar bills on the floor of the stock exchange. Then try to think of another example. I can't.) Being confronted with whole rooms stuffed with free jackets, cargo pants and tank tops inspired gluttony. Brooke picked up five pairs of khakis, almost identical. I stockpiled flannel shirts, convinced I would make a bean bag out of them. I ended up with enough to clothe every garage band in Seattle. We developed the routine of expert plunderers: appraisal, entry and quick retreat. We sang pirate songs, slinging garbage bags of booty over our shoulders. A gray-haired father rounded the corner carrying a plastic tub of towels. We subsided into giggles. In the last house we hit before returning to the car, Brooke blew our cover. Squealing, "Ralph Lauren!" she pounced on an oxford shirt. A girl stopped on the stairs above the bins. "You know," she said, looking down on us, "those are for the needy." "Well, I need a wardrobe for work," I muttered as we left. As we dragged our huge bags back to the car, I thought about what the girl had said. Putting it that way -- the needy -- implied that she saw an unfathomable gulf between college students and those who live off others' leftovers. She presumed that Brooke and I shared her social standing and purchasing power. We weren't well-dressed; how did she know we didn't need a discount on clothes? Granted, I didn't need it this time around. At another time, I might have. Despite years of attempts to open higher education, the culture of private education presumes that its participants are all equally privileged, that none of them come from the ranks of the needy. My college prep school had a fantastic curriculum that incorporated community service and cultural diversity. But there was no place at school to talk about diversity of privilege and class. My friends who depended on financial aid were hard-pressed to explain, when teased about their clothes or snubbed for where they lived, that their families did not value fashion and prestige over education and survival.
See what books are in the news at BARNES & NOBLE The girl who chewed us out seemed to think that the clothes she abandoned would pass right into the hands of the needy. (I had presumed the Salvation Army would resell them.) Had I interfered with her chosen compensation for taking more than her share? Would the needy have appeared out of the alleys to take her clothes, a horde of orphans with grateful hands outstretched? I'd wager she wasn't thinking of the workers kept needy by the companies that made the clothes in the first place. On the last day of Hippie Christmas, a Hampshire administrator passed me and my roommates as we rummaged through a knee-deep slurry of clothes. "I just can't believe all this. I think of people everywhere else ..." she said, at a loss for words or plans. Hampshire's physical plant workers, meanwhile, had their directive: to clear everything out of the dorms regardless of method. As I wrestled a chair onto a third-floor fire escape, three of them watched from across the quad. "Throw it over the edge!" one shouted. "Naw, I want this one!" I called back. It was tempting, though, to think about the spectacle of wooden legs splintering, the seat exploding in the crash. These are the fever dreams of excess. My roommates and I filled the 11 rooms of our duplex with good furniture that day, and there was plenty to spare. I wondered why the phys plant guys didn't secure the best leftovers for themselves. Then it occurred to me that smashing the houses of the spoiled kids they worked for might be more appealing than lugging dangerously heavy furniture down three flights to furnish their homes with someone else's trash. I was too shy to ask if this was the case. But the maintenance crew was clearly pleased, if a little bemused, that someone else was doing the hauling.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
