I woke up around 7:00 on a Saturday
morning in a hotel and immediately saw
this photograph of Ascension Hall, which
could only mean that I had found myself
in Gambier, Ohio, home to my alma mater,
Kenyon College. Gambier is not the
world's largest city. Its downtown
contains a grocery store, a restaurant
and a bookstore. Although to be fair,
books and food will take you a long way
in this life. So I found my way to Middle
Path, the central artery of Kenyon's
campus, which features this little post
thing that everyone touches and even
though I'm germaphobic and I knew that
this had been touched by thousands of
flu-ridden, unwashed collegiate kids on
their way to Thanksgiving break, I
touched it anyway. I was visiting Gambier
with my wife (not pictured), my son,
pictured here showcasing his
somersaulting skills, and my friend
Shannon, whom I met at Kenyon and who now
works to protect neglected and abused
kids in Chicago. But this morning I just
wanted to be alone, and there's no place
on God's green earth quieter than a
college campus at 8:00 on a Saturday
morning so I visited my freshman dorm
and Old Kenyon, where I lived as a junior,
I visited the cruciform church that I
imagined as the setting for much of my
book, "The Fault in Our Stars," and I
visited the bookstore where I first
bought Might Magazine and David Foster
Wallace's "Infinite Jest" and Zadie
Smith's "White Teeth." I was delighted that
A) there is a Kenyon Quidditch team and B)
they have a not insignificant selection
of my own books now. At last I made it to
Ascension Hall, one of Kenyon's most
Hogwarts-ian buildings, which is really
saying something. I hadn't been here in a
decade, but I found myself walking
through the classrooms and remembering:
here's where I studied creative writing
with the great PF Kluge and Islam in
Central Asia with Professor Schubel.
Here was my four-student class on
Ulysses with Professor McMullen. This was
the setting for professor Lentz's
American literature overview and here is
where I took "Approaches to the Study of
Religion" with Don Rogan, who inspired
much of the character of the old man in
my first novel, "Looking for Alaska." Then I
went up to the fourth floor to film some
promos for the College. This room is
usually a study lounge, one where quiet
is so revered that not only our cell
phones banned but so too is water
fountain slurping, but for today it was a
video shoot. Afterwards I visited several
of my professors, but I didn't film that
stuff because it felt too personal. At
Kenyon, my professors weren't just
teachers; they were mentors whom I still
greatly admire. They helped me become a
writer at Kenyon but more importantly,
they helped me to become at least a
semblance of a grown-up. Then I had lunch
at the genuinely excellent Gambier Deli,
met up with my family and walked down
the hill to visit the old man.
The old man didn't just grade my papers
when I was at Kenyon. He and his wife
Sally had me over for dinner regularly.
We read poems together. He was my friend
and counselor, and he was also very
acutely aware of the debts I owed him.
One time right after I graduated,
Professor Rogan choked on something, and
I gave him the Heimlich maneuver saving
his life, and when he recovered the first
thing he said — the very first thing — was,
"Well John, I guess you owe me one less." It
was true I did owe him a lot and I guess
one Heimlich maneuver doesn't even the
score. I'm still trying to pay him back really. In
short I know nostalgia is in the
business of twisting memory into lies
and that there are lots of great
colleges and universities, but let's face
it: Kenyon is the best one. Thanks for
watching.
