Brattle Street Elegy: Especially the Friends

View PDF

So many memories! It would take a book to record them all.

I was there from 1976 to 1983 and returned many times, including a three-and-a-half month visit in 1997. I still remember thoughts I had while the sacrament was being passed, fine talks at church (one lasting fifty minutes, the content of which I’ve forgot ten, and much shorter ones that stirred me then and that I still re member), some of our more interesting ward members who bore their testimony of global conspiracies instead of the gospel; a visit by a Massachusetts congressman (if I’m remembering rightly; I think Linda may have arranged that—please correct me if I’m wrong); a memorable gathering during the blizzard of ’78 when Cambridge shut down and we shared food storage treats in the cultural hall; dances, service projects, firesides, musical events, institute classes, crushes, long talks about the meaning of everything, and much, much more. 

Especially the friends. It’s as if we clung to each other, many of us far away from the homes we grew up in, others not that far from their geographical homes but having moved to a new spiritual home. I remember being delighted at one home evening to realize that I was one of the few “non-converts” there. 

My friends from the ward constituted most of my life at that time. My Church experiences were far more important, really, than my graduate classes (though a few of my fellow graduate students became friends, too), and many of my friends from church remain intensely dear to me still. 

Something that struck me while reading the responses to the fire: Though the years I spent there seem a magical, unrepeatable time, it appears that many of those who came later feel the same way about their time there. And how about those who came before me? I know of some of them by reputation, and they seem legendary. 

One of those who preceded me, Carlfred Broderick, has spoken evocatively of his student days there. (See his “The Core of My Belief,” in A Thoughtful Faith, edited by Philip L. Barlow [Centerville, Utah: Canon Press, 1986]), 85-101 and listen to some of his tapes.) I can picture the stories he tells in those rooms and hallways that are now in ruins. 

But my own time there—and the people I know—have taken on something of that legendary stature in my mind, too.