My dinner with Andre
Last night I went out to dinner with my daughter and Andre Deckrow, a student at Amherst with whom she’s been going out.
Although I’m not sure, in principle, that I approve of this situation, Andre seems to be an earnest and thoughtful young man and I really enjoyed our dinner conversation. He comes from the Seattle area and is interested in history and actively involved in student government. It sounds as though student government here is involved in some interesting issues, because of the times and the complex Five College community in which they reside, such as what to do about file-sharing on the campus network and how to maintain the free bus service that connects the different campuses and weaves them into a community.
We were both struck by a story on NPR’s Weekend edition that morning about Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian pioneer in flight who lived in Paris at the start of the last century. He had a personal dirigible that he’d moor near his apartment and fly to his favorite restaurant for dinner, leaving the parking attendant to tie it to a lamp post. I definitely want one.
It’s too bad that lighter-than-air craft haven’t taken off, so to speak. John McPhee wrote an interesting book published in 1973 called The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed about efforts to develop such devices, but I don’t know what’s become of them since then.
So, Andre seems like a nice enough kid, although I’m prepared to radically revise that opinion on a moment’s notice.