He Just Did It

IT'S BEGINNING to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. There's a good reason for this, namely that it's the third week of December. What does Christmas mean to me? That there's more than a negligible chance I might actually shop at Urban Outfitters, for one thing. Is there any other store in the free world that exists only to sell trinkets to people playing Secret Santa and too cheap to buy something really decent?

The snowflakes that fell ever so gently this afternoon naturally got me to thinking: what has Harvard meant to me? One of the things it means to me is walking around the Square or the Yard this time of year, with the wind nipping at my neck, the weather cold but not too cold, the air filled with anticipation of the holidays and the New Year. People really do seem nicer this time of year, I think. Then I notice that the guy outside the Coop collecting Christmas money ostensibly for the Salvation Army looks remarkably like the wheelchair basketball guy done up in a Santa Claus outfit.

How can I answer the question what does Harvard mean to me without insulting the proud and venerable University that is part of the question? I'm a guy who still says "No, I got them all cut!" when someone asks me if I've just gotten a haircut.

You'd think that after spending three-plus years thinking about such a question, I'd be all set to crank out in a few minutes an answer to the question what does Harvard mean to me. But it means so many things and so few things. Forced to come up with something concrete, I feel like offering a Tevye-like "I don't know." I don't know how different I am than when I was 17 and can't imagine being different when I'm 47 or 57. With cybernetics being what it is, I might have the chance not to know what Harvard meant to me when I'm 157.

The only thing I do know in this crazy, swirly, hurly-burly world is that Mel Torme wrote The Christmas Song. Did you know that Mel Torme wrote The Christmas Song? Yeah, the Velvet Fog wrote the famous Nat King Cole ditty, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."

Which gets me to thinking. Frank Sinatra celebrated his birthday earlier this week. He's 72. Ol' Blue Eyes. The Chairman of the Board. The man who saved Shecky Greene's life with two words: "Enough, boys."

But Frank's problems with the law and morality detract in no way from the music he made. I don't have to say this, I just thought I should. People only remember the bad stuff, the fights he got into, the women he done wrong and the patronizing way he let Sammy into the Rat Pack. But what about the good? It was Frank, remember, who brought Jerry and Dean back together on Jerry's telethon a few years back. He didn't have to. He wasn't paid for it. He just did it.

So what will I most remember about Harvard many years hence? Probably the walks along the Charles with Jenny, the way we had to scrape and scrimp after Dad cut us off and the look on her face when she died...oh, wait, that wasn't me, it was Ryan O'Neal. Which just goes to show you, art imitates life and sometimes it's vice versa. Other times, it's the other way around. Go figure.