Dancing in the Streets (Part III)

October 2014

Shrewsbury College


Quinn Morgendorffer wondered if she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

Her parents were proud that she had decided to attend Shrewsbury instead of Pepperhill.  She had managed to bring up her grades and her extracurriculars and glowing recommendations - even David Sorenson wrote one - got her by the skin of her teeth into Shrewsbury.  Shrewsbury College's reputation was that of an up-and-coming educational institution with potential and a good psychology program.  It certainly beat the party school she almost went to, Pepperhill.

However, Quinn found herself struggling almost immediately.  The work was harder than that at Lawndale High School.  Granted, it wasn't a Leland University or a University of Berkeley level of challenge but it was hard enough.  All of Quinn's social connections had to be rebuilt from ground up.

It was here that Quinn learned two major rules about college, and undergraduate education in general.

The first is that the educational rigor of a school is closely correlated with the ability of the student body to get away from idiots.  Shrewsbury was an NCAA Division III university.  It didn't even have a football team, and no sporting life except for losing basketball teams that were lucky to draw two dozen in attendance.  There was no sorority system at Shrewsbury, just dorm life, and unexceptional dorm life.  There were no drunken bacchanals or rock concerts on the Quadrangle.   It was an atomized life.  There were groups, but there wasn't a whole.  At Lawndale High School, she knew everyone but at Shrewsbury there were still people she hadn't met.  And absolutely, there was no one group of people that held sway over everything cool and popular.

The second is that college is a place to remake yourself.  The freshmen were in two groups - those who were trying to make themselves into something else but not having quite decided what.  The other group were those who were trying to recreate their high school life at Shrewsbury.  The second group was having a lot of problems.  The high school queen bees found themselves isolated for their obnoxiousness.  The jocks who were the best players on their teams either were riding the bench at Shrewsbury, or in the case of football, didn't even have a sport to fall back on.  The only winners were the brains - as long as they had a library and someone to approve of their academic strivings, they were happy.

Quinn's problem was that she had one feet in both groups.  She wanted things to be different, but she wanted to fall back on the comforts of fashion, gossip, and popularity.  At times, she chided herself for trying to act like a Fashion Club Vice-President, other times she chided herself for wanting Sandi, Stacy, and Tiffany back.  It wouldn't happen.  Sandi was at Pepperhill, Stacy was at some East Coast college, and she hadn't heard from Tiffany since graduation.

She had other struggles.  In addition to struggling with the load, her metabolism decided to kick into low gear.  She was gaining a small amout of weight, even though she hadn't changed her diet.  She dreaded having to cut anything out of her diet, which was already pared down to keep her thin and trim figure.  Her nightmare was that the Freshman Forty - the forty pounds girls supposedly gained during their first year - was upon her, and she'd do about anything to avoid that.

The fashionable girls were either snobs - rich girls who ended up at Shrewsbury because it was the safety school - or they were bores.  What few hierarchies there were were already cast in iron, and Quinn would have to climb up the popularity pole the hard way, and she didn't know if she had the desire, or didn't know if it was the right thing to do, or didn't know any better.

Sometimes, she'd put on a sweat shirt and sweat pants, look out the window, and just think about how alone she was.  The only people that really seemed to approve of her being at Shrewsbury were her parents - and Daria.  Daria's approval meant more to her than even Helen or Jake's.  Daria and Quinn rarely communicated, but after Daria learned of Quinn's acceptance, she sent a rare text message.

"Wow.  A school that doesn't have its diplomas perforated at the edges.  How did THAT happen?"

Quinn smiled when she read it.  Daria seemed happy at Raft.  Why couldn't she be happy at Shrewsbury?  She just felt like a big fat failure.


(* * *)

It was going to be another lazy Saturday.  There was a knock at the door.  Quinn answered it.

There was a girl wearing a green T-shirt and white pants.  She had a backpack and was carrying some papers.  "Hi, my name is Madeline, and I'm a member of the National Progressive American People's Party," she said.  "The system in America doesn't work.  Are you interested in helping us form a national political organization?"

She handed Quinn the pamphlet.  Quinn looked it over.  There was a party platform with a set of bullet points. A picture of some young-looking adult with some information about who he was. 

"I'm sorry," Quinn said. "I'm not interested in politics."

"If your house was on fire," Madeline said, "you'd be interested in putting it out.  America's house is on fire, and we're all going to get burned.  Our party platform offers ways to put that fire out."

Quinn gave the pamphlet another cursory glance.  She knew she had to get rid of Madeline.  "Isn't it a faux pas to wear white after Labor Day?" referring to Madeline's white pants.

"Coco Chanel wore white every day," Madeline said, smiling.

"True," Quinn said, "but that green and white combination has got to go.  I hope that's not all you're wearing!"

Quinn chided herself for pulling out her inner Sandi, but she was also impressed that Madeline knew who Coco Chanel was.  "I've never heard of you guys."

"There's a website.  www.npapp.org.  You can find out anything you want to find out."

"Are you having any luck?"

"Doing what?"

"Getting members?

Madeline gave a slight frown. "There are only five of us," she said. 

"So...not working, huh?" Quinn said, somewhat dismissively.

"No one is going to come to a meeting unless they know about it," Madeline said.  "They might not come to a meeting, but they'll sure as hell know about it by the time I'm done."

"Look.  I don't make commitments on the first date - so to speak, Quinn said.  "How am I supposed to know that you guys are not a bunch of looney tunes?"

"Read the website.  If there's something you don't agree with - tell us. But there are a few things we're not moving on.  Global warming is real, and it's going to screw all of us.  Our national economy is a joke.  Big business don't care.  Labor unions don't care. Washington doesn't care.  It's just us.  If you're not fighting for what you want, then you don't want it bad enough.  Can I ask your name?"

Quinn pulled the trigger. "It's Quinn.  Quinn Morgendorffer."

"Quinn, I hope you'll come to our meeting next Thursday.  Please come."

Sighing, Quinn said, "I need to find out about this...Fred Wolff guy, whoever he is.  Good looking."

"See you on campus, Quinn," Madeline said. "I'll be the one wearing green and white.  And if you just want to chat - that's okay, too.  Take care!"

Quinn closed the door.  "Fred Wolff, huh?" she said to herself and then walked to her laptop where she punched up the NPAPP website.

It was a bare-bones website that really didn't offer much more than the platform of NPAPP.  Quinn read off a few bullet points of the NPAPP Platform:

* We invest in the people.  We invest in peace, we invest in health care, we invest in intrastructure, we invest in community, we invest in education. We do not invest in war and we do not invest in economic speculation.

...

* We believes nature has rights.  If a corporation can have rights, then nature certainly has more rights than any corporation.

...

* We believe that all citizens have equal rights and equal obligations.  There will be an end to the dual standard of justice.

A lot of it was la-dee dah, but Quinn liked a few things.  "Caring for the older generation will always be a top priority of the National Progressive American People's Party." "The days of the "one dollar, one vote" democracy are over." "Racism and misogyny have no place in this party, and they never will."

Quinn wondered how much they meant that last statement, but it was a good start. 

She searched the "campus branches" and found they were very few and far between, mostly based in Eastern Schools.

* Boston Academy of Fine Arts
* Boston Institute of Technology
* Crestmore University
* Raft University
* Shrewsbury College
* Vance University
It looked like Madeline's little group was the lone Western outpost of NPAPP.  She then looked up Fred Wolff:

Fred Wolff is the National Progressive American People's Party Chairman.  A veteran of the Gulf Wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) he served several tours of duty, working his way up from recruit to Sergeant (E-5) in the United States Marines.  When his squad leader in Afghanistan was killed by enemy fire, Wolff took charge, killing five members of the Taliban, carrying wounded soldiers off the battlefield despite being exposed to hostile fire, and with his squad managed to hold his position until help could arrive.  For bravery in battle, Wolff was awarded the Silver Star.  

There were other quotes testifying to Wolff's bravery, with some background information.  He grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsyvlania.  He attended high school and after 9/11, enlisted in the Marines, volunteered for several tours there.  Injuries on duty - he also had Purple Heart - forced him to leave the Marines. 

"I learned from watching the movies that even a minority can do great things if they just have courage.  I haven't been proven wrong yet." - Fred Wolff

It seemed interesting to Quinn, maybe going to that meeting. But it was just an idea.  They didn't really look like much of anything.  Five people.  She supposed that going door to door was a "great thing" if you were shy, but there was no bolt of lightning that was moving her.  Her instinct told her that it would just be a waste of time.

She shoved the pamphlet into her drawer, and moved on to other things.

(* * *)

It was Thursday, and she came back to her dorm completely dejected.  She looked at her mid-term grade for Advanced Trigonometry.

67.  And that was a grade far better than she deserved.  The test was about all sorts of sine and cosine formulas that seemed impervious to memorization.  The teacher was no help, and she had been told by several of her classmates that they guy was the worst teacher in the math department.  The class started out with 32 people, dropped to 20 people by the beginning of October, and Quinn cursed herself for not dropping the class.  She suspected that the class would end with just a handful of people.

She needed a "C" in Calculus I just to be accepted into the psychology program at Shrewsbury.  This gave Quinn several unappetizing options.  She could sweat out Advanced Trig and pray for a "C" for effort, but she knew she wouldn't be prepared for Calc.  She could drop the class and take it again in the Spring.  Or she could change majors.

In addition, there was the Blake Prichard. He was one of the sweetest, nicest guys that she had met.  She had thrown about a zillion hints at him - to no effect.  She had finagled some study time with him.  Finally, she decided that drastic measures needed to be taken - she invited him out to lunch.

He declined. He was going out of town.  Quinn didn't know if it was the truth, if it was an excuse, if he was gay.  She just didn't care.

She looked at her bare desk.  Her roommate - a Chinese girl that she had nothing in common with, a brainiac - was off at the library.  It was to be another lone night again to deal with her failure.

Chinese. She wondered if there was a place that delivered Chinese food.  She opened her desk drawer, and saw the NPAPP Pamphlet again.  It offered an opportunity.  She could stay at the dorm and be miserable, or attend the NPAPP meeting and be miserable there.  At least she'd have company.  It might even be good for a laugh if they were all a bunch of lame-os.

Madeline left her number.  She figured she'd give them a call.