Read Online Beet by Roger Rosenblatt - Free Book Online Page B

protest was awaited from the Robert Bly Man’s Manliness Society against the event itself, which the Bly group condemned as “sissyish.”
    The day was known by its celebrants as “S Day,” and had its own hand signal, like the victory V. Since forming the S required the use of both hands touching at the thumbs (the left held below the right, so that the letter would be backward to the ones who made it yet correct for those facing it), one could not give the sign while holding packages, or holding anything. That sometimes made for physically awkward moments as books, groceries, and occasionally babies had to be laid on the ground before the signal could be given. But since fewer than a dozen faculty members, and no students, remembered either the S sign or how to make it, the inconvenience was deemed minor.
    Also on the school calendar was How to Prepare for the Holidays Day—“my second favorite,” said Manning—always held the week before Thanksgiving, the components of which were so complicated and muzzy, the problem that once occupied a mere town meeting on Sensitivity Day now required a day of its own. The activities included formal debates regarding public displays of religious symbols such as “The Crèche: Pro or Con?” and “The Menorah: Yes or No?” along with panel discussions of “Atheist Rights,” which involved the suggestion that the baby Jesus be removed from the Nativity scene. The panel “Should We Place a Menorah in the Crèche?” was the most successful.
    The highlight of every How to Prepare for the Holidays Day was a sermon in the Temple by Dr. Bucky Lookatme, the college chaplain (a full-blooded Cherokee who had been converted to Christianity by Billy Graham himself, when the evangelist’s train had made a whistle stop at Lookatme’s Arizona reservation), on the ever-popular topic “Godspeak.” Lookatme had tobacco-colored skin with a birthmark stain on his forehead in the shape of California. At thepulpit, he appeared less pastor than apparatchik, and with the backing of Bollovate and Huey had taken to selling his Sunday sermons for fifteen dollars apiece, with a fifty-fifty split for the college. His best seller was “On the Highway to Heaven, What Are You Paying for Gas?” His perennial issue was nothing as simple as whether God should be addressed as He, She, or It, but rather, Should God be allotted divine superiority as compared to humans? Chaplain Lookatme had come up with this problem all by himself, but once he stated it, several of the faculty agreed it was crucial. The point was, said Lookatme, that God Him-, Her-, or Itself would not wish to be thought of as existing on a higher plane than mortals. He or She or It was more of a Friend.
    Manning intended to participate in this discussion as well. He was going to propose abandoning such archaisms as the opening of the Lord’s Prayer, and substituting “Our Buddy Which art in heaven.”
    While only one-sixteenth of the college and community observed either Sensitivity Day or How to Prepare for the Holidays Day, the events were fully incorporated into official college life, and foreshortened the term. Some hours were also eaten up by Matha’s radicals, who continued to pace in the two Pens with placards reading “The CCR Will Not Go Far.” Goldvasser wore a sandwich sign that read, “Free the Des Moines 7,” but no one seemed sufficiently interested to point out his errors.
    All this made a difficult schedule more so for Professor Porterfield, who, after the first weeks of meetings of the CCR, was beginning to wonder if any amount of time, extended or shrunk, would accomplish what everyone wanted. Ideally, when the new curriculum was presented, the faculty would rise to their feet, every man and woman, cheer, sing the college song (whatever its words might be) and weep openly that in its darkest hour in the darkest season,