A Selfless Choice of Sharing LoveI am currently a second-year MBA student at Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business, and today just became one of my favorite days at Dartmouth. It happened as I read through each article of the latest WM [Winter 2017, “Getting to the Good”].
Typically I skim through the pictures, try to find photos of my classmates, get a quick update, and then put it down to focus on homework. Today, when I started flipping through pages about Wabash community members building families through adoption and redefining what family means, I was drawn into every article and deeply touched by the emotions the authors shared in this issue.
I felt like I was Greg Castanias ’87 flying to Dallas to welcome his first daughter, or Professor Bobby Horton holding his daughter, Maesa, alone and home for the first time.
I was not adopted, yet every single story resonated with me and made me reflect on my own journey and identity of living in the United States as a foreigner in this country and “adopted” brother among my Wabash friends.
Growing up in China, adoption was often discussed as an inferior plan B. To me, there are lots of mysteries about the adopting parents: How do they make the decision? What do their friends and families feel? Will they (and their family members) provide the truly unconditional love that my parents gave to me? And about the mother giving her child up for adoption: How desperate must a circumstance be to lead one to give up her child for adoption? What would her life look like with the child?
During my 17 years in China and 9 years in the U.S., I rarely got to know anyone my age who was adopted. Today’s reading provided me with stories and answers to my questions and inspired me with the brave and selfless journeys those parents took. From the online videos and moments of “father and daughter” descriptions, I was able to feel there was no difference between the love that I received from my biological parents and the one from those adopting parents.
To some extent, I have also been an adopted child in this country and received a tremendous amount of love from my nonbiological families.
My experience of being “adopted” started with many wonderful holidays spent with my fraternity brothers and their families. Like many other international students, I was too “financially conservative” to fly home every holiday. Instead many of my fraternity brothers opened their doors and invited me to spend holidays with them. I got to know American holidays and Indiana traditions. In return, I shared my stories of living in China, cooked my hometown meals, and taught them simple Chinese phrases.
I can vividly remember my very first birthday cake made by my McDougal family in their lake house, my first driving practice with the Carper family, my first Black Friday trip with the Lesch family, my favorite Burger King breakfast delivered by the Huebner family, my first handmade quilt from the Goodman family, my first “congratulations snack box” sent by the Maher and Bender families… They became my adopted parents, brothers, and sisters. They let me know I will always have my bed, my towel, my favorite brand of orange juice, my beloved beer chips and teriyaki seaweed snacks in their places.
So today, I feel adoption is absolutely not an inferior plan B. It is an active, selfless choice of sharing love. Thank you for curating this issue and the authors for sharing their wonderful stories.
Paul Liu ’12
Hanover, NJ
“What Wabash Is All About”
I’m a proud Wabash parent of two ’92 graduates. This issue [WM Winter 2017], as all issues, I have read from front to back.
I don’t ever recall a more loving and touching expression of pure dedication to the meaning of what Wabash is all about. It is the adoption of the Wabash life that carries these men to their greatness.
Thank you for this issue. It’s especially... exceptionally well done.
Pam Green
Greenwood, IN
Bookshelves
I always enjoy WM, but I especially enjoyed the feature on your bookshelf in the most recent issue. It’s always interesting to see the books people have read and the trinkets that are important to them.
I hope you consider making this a recurring feature. It would be fun to get a glimpse of the bookshelves of various professors and alumni.
Scott Simpson ’95
El Cajon, CA
Thought Provoking
WM Winter 2017 [“Getting to the Good”] was one of the best ever. Its emphasis on “adoption” was extremely thought provoking.
I was especially reminded of my Indianapolis church, North United Methodist Church, and its emphasis on full inclusion. It is mind-blowing and tear-invoking to watch a gay or lesbian couple serve communion or have their babies, adopted or biological, baptized.
We’ve come a long way in our culture but have a long way to go.
Phil Coons ’67
Indianapolis, IN
Traveling With Wabash Brothers
Reading WM Fall 2016 [“The Art of Travel”] brought memories of trips near and far.
I was reminded that many of those journeys included Wabash brothers. We have stood on mountaintops, canoed in Nova Scotia, trekked in Bhutan, and gone spelunking in southern Indiana.
Perhaps the greatest collection of travels occurred in the summer of 1970, what I call “The Summer After the Summer Before.”
The summer after graduation from Wabash, the summer before Vietnam was built for adventurous road trips. The two longest trips both started in the center of the country (Michigan City, IN) and headed to the coasts. Both by the indirect routes available to those who were unemployed and in possession of low draft numbers in 1970. These were the first of many trips together, though after our tours of military duty, we were limited by available vacation days and growing family obligations. In this one summer our trips were only limited by our imaginations and how much gas we could purchase on the Gulf credit card authorized for the new college graduate without a job.
The first trip helped set the tone for the rest of the summer. Our goal was to go hiking in the new (in 1970) North Cascades National Park in Washington. Three TKE fraternity brothers—Bob “Mic” McMahon ’70, Phil Radtke ’70, and I—gathered our meager camping gear, some homemade and some purchased from J. C. Penney or Frostline, and our hiking/camping outfits: work boots, jeans, and flannel shirts. The three of us, with packs, small suitcases, and one dog, Nuisance, set off for our great mountain adventure stuffed into Mic’s Austin (Note: Trips of more than 3,000 miles should include at least some legroom for all passengers).
That summer we had time for several more small trips and one longer journey…this time in Don Brigg’s pickup truck with a cap on the back…lessons learned. And on that trip—which took us east until we ran out of land and started canoeing in the North Atlantic Ocean off the Cape Breton Highlands of Nova Scotia—we began by heading northwest to Minneapolis, then north to Duluth before finally finding our way east along the south shore of Lake Superior.
Road trips: the perfect requirement for completing your liberal arts and sciences education. (Well, that and Comps.)
Charlie Crowley ’70
Minneapolis, MN