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Show page 36 ghosts of heroes in high collars looking doxm their noses at the new crop of athletes. It took awhile for his frustrations to let this merge into the present, but when it did it made unreal the checks from his indulgent mother and her advice for him to meet "the right" girl. He felt empty when he remembered the Saturday crowds shouting for touchdox-7ns. He knew that wealth was vulnerable. He x>7as beginning to think for himself for the first time in his life. One day he passed under the campus elm, realized x-vhere he was and hurried on. He had used the elm - and the moon - for conquest of Florence, Agnes, Irene, and Patricia. At the Co-op he began to measure himself in the glass. His coat was too expensive, his manner too exclusive. He felt like going into a ridiculous spasm of laughter. Who had created this image? His parents? Coach Mayfield? Prof Tomlin? This time he turned away from the Co-op. He x^anted a beer. Beer x^as his touch. Beer x-;ent x\7ith 1A classification. Beer and plain talk x-70uld be the leveling line, Tomlin had said. But to The Sundoxm Kid it was more than that. It was a shoring up of thought on his future. It was development of muscle for lifelong purpose. The threat to the privileged class x-70uld not be his embarrassment. For him, purification would come from duty. Military service was a healthy man's duty. Harvesting hay was a healthy man's duty. Something different. He had to enlist. Continued wandering in a circle wasn't giving him all he wanted. He went down the street to a place he had visited once on a scavenger hunt, where he had gotten a poster saying "Old Time |
