Dreamland

I’m sitting in my living room in Lakeside talking with Peter Sherer about Deerfield. I can see Lake Michigan through a picture window behind him. It’ a sunny, windy day and the breakers are huge, with great beautiful white plumes exploding into the air when the waves break.

He asks me where Deerfield went wrong and I try to answer. I say I think it’s the current headmaster, whose name I can’t remember. I say, well, it wasn’t when they admitted girls, and he makes a funny face of course not. I say, then it was Widmer, and he was pretty cool.

Then I say I got the feeling at reunion that it was a better place. But it was the new headmaster’s first year. He makes a knowing smile.

I say “look at the size of those breakers” because they really are huge, especially large out on the second sandbar, and he looks over his shoulder out the square picture window. I’m momentarily embarrassed as I feel I’ve just pointed out the beauty of the view from my own living room. His is the same though. He just looks for a second, it’s nothing more than a brief interruption.

He says, “how can you ask that question,” meaning in a job interview of a headmaster, “are you a complete dork?” I say you have to be especially gifted not to alienate students who are sensitive to being alienated. He agrees. In fact I say you have to work really hard at it.

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