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.

To study the Yanamamo Tribe, “The Man Called Bee” (shown in video) adapted the clothing of his hosts. He conspicuously brandished his chosen weapon in a formal greeting. To gain the trust of the indigenous, he surrendered his soul to a potent ceremonial hallucinogen.

We watched him in Cultural Anthropology 101.

As I study the tribe at our remote community college, I’ve followed Bee’s example. Clothing: cheap relaxed-fit jeans, fleeces, thick-soled boots or sneakers. For my weapon: I brandish an iPhone 4 as is the custom here. The ceremonial drug arrived unexpectedly with my rental textbooks: two promotional-sized cans of Red Bull. We danced and brayed.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

“Why are you here?”

It was a perfectly reasonable question for a college student to ask a lab partner two generations her senior. My answer was a smile. Depending on your age, you may understand what she wouldn’t have.

After The New Yorker said that I’m too old to do cartoons for them—after two meetings in their Times Square offices —I paused to take stock. I needed deadlines to meet, details to sweat, someone to notice if I got things right or wrong. I was hungry to engage. I wanted to consume knowledge rather than feed it to others. I needed something substantial to do. I needed to know if I’m still in working order. The good news, I am.

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

“It’s good to be smart, bad to be stupid.”

— from today’s lecture

Just Your Average 68-Year-Old College Freshman

A boy like me at Harvard.

“It all depends on your footnotes.” said my professor. Any fool can get the first citation onto a page, he was looking in my direction. The second time you cite the same source you list only author and page, or even better, you can use “Ibid.”

But to give Harvard a real woody, you need one last level of sophistication. Foreign terms should be italicized like this—Ibid (use your imagination, ital doesn’t show on FB). Perfect! You’re as good as admitted, you can start memorizing the Crimson fight song. (And to think I almost skipped the lecture that day.)