Letters
A salute to the military
Kudos to 1st Lt. Paul Rieckhoff ’98 for taking the road less traveled by Amherst alumni. Every American owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Rieckhoff and all other members of our armed forces for protecting the liberties we take for granted. What a shame that the campus environment [was] such that, as Rieckhoff described in his interview with Amherst, students cannot comprehend why someone in uniform would ever visit the college.
— Timothy D. Belevetz ’89
Alexandria, Va.
Russians talk about Russian men and American men
I greatly enjoyed reading Michele Berdy’s “The Grass Is Greener” in the [online] summer issue of Amherst. I sent the piece around to my various Russian friends, who responded with a general tone of affirmation and delight. One friend said, “I can identify with both worlds. The Russian in me can identify with the need for drama in my life, as well as the need for constant attention and adoration from my husband. Then again, the American side of me requires clarity in a relationship. I’ve often had a hard time talking to my (Russian) dad because he dances around certain subjects. It has only been in the past few years, out of the 28 years he has lived in the U.S., that he’s become more American and more willing to be open in our conversations.”
Another friend, who likes to be referred to as “the Russian mermaid,” said, “Russian women (in Russia) will stand anything from a man who’s not alcoholic and doesn’t chase after every skirt. Russian men, on the other hand, know much better that one doesn’t need to wait for February 14 or the girl’s birthday to give her flowers—they can just do it as they walk with her down the street, or on the first date. But they are often completely immature and can hardly survive without their mother cooking and washing for them.”
—Zachary Bos
Boston, Mass.
Common-reading program more common than supposed
In the article “Common Reading Marks Orientation” in the fall issue of Amherst, Dean of New Students Allen Hart ’82 is paraphrased to the effect that the faculty wanted, “for the first time,” a “common intellectual experience” for new students. Surely someone on the faculty will remember that this has been done before, although when it began and when it ended I do not know. The Class of 1965 was assigned to read E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India before our limited Orientation in 1961, and when we arrived, Professor George Kateb delivered a lecture on the book. Or at least he said it was about the book. Many of us, and I include myself, only understood that if he was talking about the same book we had read, the first thing Amherst had to teach us was how to read. And it did, or did try. That was the same Orientation where Dean C. Scott Porter, vis-à-vis the “New Curriculum” and its mandatory courses, said something like, “Boys, your parents sent you here because not only do you not know anything, you do not even know what you ought to learn.” He was right then. Some of us troglodytes believe that is even more true now, given the explosion of knowledge. But then, I guess incoming freshpersons now are infinitely more sophisticated and better-educated than we were.
—Paul Ruxin ’65
Chicago, Ill.