Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

The “Freshman Fifteen” is shorthand for the pounds kids put on during their first year at college.

They line up in front of all-you-can-eat dormitory buffets, desserts included. Between meals there are chips, pastries, sugar-glazed sugar and fried salt. There’s even an industry that ships snacks to remind students their parents wuv them.

Academic stress plays a role too—adrenaline and cortisol spike. Eat something! The eight-hundred-pound gorilla is alcohol. There are rumors about keggers but somehow I haven’t gotten invited to any. What’s that about?

Freshman gain an average of 8 pounds in their first year—some even more. Most of them work off their Freshman Fifteen before they work off their student loans, which really isn’t saying much.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

— If you float to the top of the river—the gods have judged you to be innocent.

— When you dissect a mallard and its gizzard is out of place in relation to its liver, your spice shipment from Cathay has been lost to pirates.

—Nasty pustules oozing Black Death? Those cranky, cranky gods.

— In the mid 1600s, a Englishman named John Usher calculated that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. His reckonings were so convincing they were printed in the margins of the King James Bible.

There’s an idea that runs through my Science and Humanities textbooks: People often make great progress when they challenge their gods. Ironically change has often been punished as heresy throughout history. (Maybe I should excuse myself now if you don’t mind—they’re piling sticks around that stake over there.)

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

Something unnatural is happening in Room 250.

Precise rows of seats have been placed to face the lectern at the front of the room. Separately, a handful of chairs line one of the walls. This is where The Lost Boys insist on sitting for an hour and a quarter of lecture time—isolated from the rest of us. They are on familiar terms, these guys, entertaining one another with sly eye contact and non-verbals.

Because they’ve shunted themselves to the side, seats that are intended for them remain empty. The odds of a girl seating on either side of those yawning voids is near certitude.

We’re well into our second month now and the Lost Boys are still hugging the side of the room. It hasn’t occurred to even one of them that taking a seat next to a lovely young anthropology student can do wonders for a guy’s weekend.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

Something unnatural is happening in Room 250.

Precise rows of seats have been placed to face the lectern at the front of the room. Separately, a handful of chairs line one of the walls. This is where The Lost Boys insist on sitting for an hour and a quarter of lecture time—isolated from the rest of us. They are on familiar terms, these guys, entertaining one another with sly eye contact and non-verbals.

Because they’ve shunted themselves to the side, seats that are intended for them remain empty. The odds of a girl seating on either side of those yawning voids is near certitude.

We’re well into our second month now and the Lost Boys are still hugging the side of the room. It hasn’t occurred to even one of them that taking a seat next to a lovely young anthropology student can do wonders for a guy’s weekend.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman.

He and I will spend two afternoons together each week during the semester—except on those days when he’s scheduled to go before a judge. Even though there’s no credit or tuition involved, this is one of the most educational experiences I have at the college.

He was processed through O’Hare International only weeks ago. It’s not the clothes or the hair or even the accent, somehow you just know when people are new. We’ve teamed up to do battle against the tyranny of English prepositions, the aggressive cruelty of articles, the singular and plural teasing of our verb forms. He’s not afraid of a fight.

The civil war in Syria is his war—you’ve read about it. Ironically we discovered and discussed the word “bitter” yesterday (“Not sweet.” he repeated.). He was an infantry officer in the Syrian Army. He saw things. He’s neither a Shiite or Sunni—he had to leave.