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Show 136 I was bored and resentful. This time in her lined face I saw that she was getting old. She was worried about me, she loved me and feared for me. She did not tell me to avoid the evils of the world; she told me to be careful, to stay alive. That first. Because she knew then what I know now, the risk of youth, and she took me into her arms and wept heavily. The smell of her had been part of me all my life and I melted with her tears and cried so hard that when I turned to my father I could see him only through a watery blur. We shook hands, and suddenly he grabbed me to hug me and I felt his face warm against mine, the smell of tobacco, the brush of his mustache, and when he released me I saw his glistening tears. I hurried aboard. But now, traveling across Nevada, I felt I was deepened by my experience, I felt the responsibility of the course I had chosen, I felt in touch with all of man's experience, with the really big things. I felt pretty noble in fact. St. Mary's College is across the bay from San Francisco and my heart lifted to be back in the smell of coastal rain, but then we were called out of the barracks and lined up for our first roll call. John Adams! Here! Benedict Arnold! Here! Arnold Benedict! Here! John Booth! Here! Baby Brocken! Silence. Baby Brocken! |