The Third Tuesday

We talk about Regret.

nostalgia

desperate

~~~~~~~~~

By the start of my senior year. I have taken so many sociology classes, I am only a few shy credits of a degree. Morrie suggests I try an honors thesis.

Me? I ask. What would I write down?

What interests you? he says.

We bat it back and forth, until we finally settle on, of all things, sports. I begin a year-long project on how football in America has become ritualistic, almost a religion, an opiate for the masses. Ihave no idea that this is training for my future career. I only know it gives me another once-a-week with Morrie.

And, with his help, by spring I have a 112-page thesis, researched, footnoted, documented, and neatly in black leather. I show it to Morrie with the pride of a little Leaguer rounding the bases on his home run.

Congratulations, Morrie says.

I grin as he leafs through it, and I glance around his office. The shelves of books, the hardwood floor, the throw rug, the couch. I think to myself that I have sat just about everywhere there is to sit in the room.

I don't know, Mitch, Morrie muses,adjusting his glasses as he reads, "with work like this, we may have to get you back here for grad school."

Yeah, right, I say.

I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites, I watch Morrie as he reads my thesis, and wonder what the world will be like out there.