A Spring Break Saga

Like most seniors, all of our recent financial decisions have been made with the Senior Gift in mind. After forking over more than a hundred thousand dollars in the last four years, we are watching every penny so that we can make a massive contribution to an institution which is truly in dire need of funds.

While we remain concerned about the grade gap and the dearth of vans available to student groups, in pursuit of positions as generous neophyte alumni we put aside our differences with the administration. And so when it came to making spring break plans, with the profoundly worthwhile senior gift in mind, we discarded dreams of Cancun and selflessly pursued a bargain vacation.

Okay, so maybe it was our respective nicotine and running-shoe habits, coupled with some massive thesis-incurred library fines, that forced us to be money conscious...but we couldn't resist mentioning the Senior Gift on April Fool's Day.

We had little desire to spend the week searching for beach towel space among throngs of other well-oiled and intoxicated people our own age. In pursuit of sun and sand without the MTV Beach House backdrop, we abandoned the college spring break scene and headed out on a inter-generational adventure. (Anyway, staying with the relatives is the easiest way to be cost effective.)

First stop--the chaotic home of Abby's aunt, uncle and cousins, where the majority of the inhabitants are under the age of four. In the land of the little people the three-and-a-half-year-old twin cousins reign, and references to "pee-pee juice" and "stinky head" generate ongoing hysteria. We quickly adapted to most aspects of our temporary home: Cheerios, cheese sandwiches and jokes about excretory functions served us well. We watched Bambi, played hide-and-go-seek in the dark hallways of the aquarium and got to be veloceraptors in prehistoric playground battles. But ultimately, daily rituals like the ingenious game "rise-and-shine" (played prior to 7 a.m.) sent us packing.

En route to Joshua Tree National Park, we visited a different type of generational enclave: Palm Springs, a remarkably well-landscaped desert entirely populated by tan elderly individuals ready to play golf at a moment's notice. Our "economy" rental car and solid-colored clothing was painfully out of place in this burg, so humming U2 (no tape-deck in "economy" rentals) we hurried on our way. Joshua Tree, not surprisingly, was filled with Joshua trees, but it offered little in the way of generations and lots in the way of El Nino-induced drizzle. So with the prototypical National Park day of driving, staring at Visitor Center displays, and photographing rock formations with names like "Pirate's Skull" under our belt, we proceeded to that locus of unique inter-generational experiences--Leisure World, home to Abby's grandmother and 22,000 other Californians over the age of fifty-five.

Although it features thousands of people with little to do but be, uh, leisurely, Leisure-World is indeed ages away from the Spring Break scene. There are no scantily clad mediocre dancers or perky VJ's within the confines of this planned community. The sculpted hills of our vacation hot spot did not resonate with Chumbawumba, and while one resident did try to set Abby up with her grandson, the prospects for drunken hookups seemed extremely limited.

Moments into our Leisure-World experience, we found ourselves walking a rat-sized dog named Lady along spotless sidewalks. While Lady, appropriately accessorized with a pink bow and a tumor half her size, waddled through pristine gardens, we relished our inter-generational paradise. Surrounded by Buicks, pastel buildings, and sweater-clad dogs, we truly had stumbled into spring break Twilight Zone.

Visits to the Arts and Crafts Clubhouse (complete with lapidary studio), the Aerobics and Sports Clubhouse (which puts the MAC to shame) and the Theatre Clubhouse confirmed our suspicion that this enclosed community is an alternative universe that takes leisure seriously. It looked like it would get boring in under a month.

The more time we spent in Leisure World, the more acutely we became conscious of our status as anomalies. We walked too fast, talked too loud and drove too small a car; we stood out like a parent in a lecture hall. It wasn't long before we were ready to wave good-bye to Abby's grandma and Lady and return to a working world.

Overall we're happy to be back home, where waking before nine qualifies one as a martyr and Matt Damon is considered relatively old. But sitting in our dorm room surrounded again by 7000 stressed undergrads, we're left wondering why our society is so drastically segregated by age. It might do everyone a little good to spend more time with both the "poo-poo" and the miniature poodle sets. Maybe next year the MTV Beach House can be stationed in Leisure-World.

Andrea E. Johnson '98-'99 is an environmental science and public policy concentrator, and Abigail R. Branch '98 is a social studies concentrator. They live in Quincy House.