“I don’t believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don’t want to. That’s something that you just want to take on trust. It’s a classic . something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” -Mark Twain,

When delivering that speech, Mark Twain probably did not know he had touched on one of the defining features of the Freshman Moment. What he was talking about, everyone understands. But freshmen get it with greater precision. The textbooks we feverishly and foolishly purchase at the beginning of each semester, and which, by finals time, have been tossed wantonly throughout our rooms, unread, unwanted, and unloved-well, we can nobly say that those are things everybody wants to have read. The pure intention, bless our hearts, is there.

As with every new August (but probably especially so for the August preceding college), we, the class of 2004, came to school assuring ourselves that this would be the year. The year we were at last going to jettison that childish proclivity for taunting an approaching deadline. The year we were to transfigure into scholars, advertised by the thoughtful pose and the frequent deployment of “theoretically speaking . . .”. The year we would sip on Plato and then instruct our parents about the intricacies of texture and the nuances of flavor-and then laugh in deep and unapologetic condescension at their intellectual feebleness.

It is now May, and as I write this I hear my parents laughing at the intellectual feebleness of their son. It is a laugh well-deserved and well-earned, and it is a laugh sent with much endearment. They seem to find my swagger modestly charming. But they have learned what I have not: I know nothing. And besides, in two weeks I again become their serf; my loftiness will get a nice sunburn while sweeping the pool.

Summer stares at us from down the hall, and we can say with confidence that this year was not our academic debutante ball. And that is okay. We have three more tries. Actually, our failure is not something to be grieved. It is something to be exalted, as long as our minds have the capacity to glorify our memories. Of course, with those memories it may be wise to be somewhat guarded, lest they meander into manipulative, sly and opportunistic hands. Your teenagers’.

This may not have been the year we solved the abiding issues of adolescence, or even the issues in Chapter 1, but this year did-hopefully-tell us something about our native sentiments. And parents.

During the thick heat of a St. Louis summer we arrived at school stuffed with certainties imparted by our Sovereigns. College is swift at inflaming a mood for revolution, and many of us acquired this mood and liked the way it felt. Thus began their decline.

The mutiny is not total. It is perfectly healthy. It is healthy because a good college should challenge all we think we know.

And if we find ourselves lamenting that mom and dad got it wrong, or if we find ourselves dismayed at their difficulty adjusting to an empty household, I say: Be glad. To know that our parents do in fact struggle, sometimes hugely, is one of freshman year’s most under-appreciated gifts. My parents are now indisputably human, and this epiphany has not diminished my love for them, it has enhanced it.

Over the past nine months, the business of the world has been typically brisk and typically bewildering. Harlem became the new Bill Clinton Forest Preserve. His partner in crime (literally) fastened herself to New York, won a senate seat, and insisted that she had no desire for the Presidency. Tiger Woods won everything there was to win except a lawsuit for which he paid thousands of dollars.

Michael Jordan teased us with his possible third coming, while a hero in Rome continued reminding people about a Coming far greater.

Because of an election day that took over a month, Al Gore crept torturously close to the Presidency-fortunately, Providence had other plans.

In Austin, Texas, a nineteen-year-old was arrested for alcohol possession, which would have worried no one had her name not been Jenna Bush. Just yesterday, Jenna’s father told the world the United States needs a missile defense shield.

There is still no peace in the Middle East, and the stock market is splintering, but freshmen will head into the summer wonderfully reflective about their own lives, and about the first year of a brave new world.

There have been disappointments, there have been disasters, and there have been-oh, yes indeed-outstanding episodes of fun. And, quite possibly, there was some learning, but let us not end on a sober note.

It is often said that the youth of today is the promise of tomorrow. Because of the Class of 2004, tomorrow is in terrific condition.

Matt Emerson is a freshman majoring in political science.