Winter 2002

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Exchange: To and from the editors

READERS REFLECT: Invoking the Maroon

by Dianne Lodge-Peters ’51

“QUICK STUDY" IS NOT A TERM I’d apply to my learning process. More like “Slow learner.” Coursework, books, ideas, concepts, all tend to “take” about three months after the fact. So it was with “the maroon” – an expression I first heard last June, at my 50th reunion, used by then-chancellor David Scott to describe the quality possessed by certain UMass alums. Since September 11 my writing has lacked focus. I have lacked focus. I wander around willy-nilly and my mind and pen follow. Not unlike a case of “the blahs,” and very like other writers who’ve told TV audiences they had the head, but not the heart, for the kind of concentrated effort that writing takes. It occurs to me now that etymology of “focus” is in the Latin for “hearthfires.” September 11th took the fire out me and my words. At first light on October 9, I wrote in my journal, “I suspect the focus is coming back into my words. I slept like stone last night and today the effort for writing could show me that the maroon has – ” The maroon? The memory leapt into focus: David Scott’s sharp Scottish features, a twinkle in his eye not just from spring sunlight streaming through windows but as if he were lighted from within, telling us that he intended to carry some of the maroon into retirement. The maroon means that a UMass someone has pizzazz, moxie, charisma, initiative, perserverance, energy, some chutzpah, talent – indeed all that stuff integrated toward getting work done, accomplishing something worthwhile, making Alma Mater (and Mom) proud. It took a bin Laden to deflect the maroon in my nature this fall – but now I take David Scott’s meaning. I see the maroon from afar, a deep purplish-red. I hear it in songs I sang in college glee clubs. I smell it in my nostalgia for New England apple orchards in bloom or heavy with fruit that I can hold in my hand. I feel it on my tongue – a sweet nutty taste toasted in the fires of my heart. The maroon returns to my words. It’s been worth the wait. Dianne Lodge-Peters writes from Evergreen, Alabama.

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All the letters

COLLEGE TRY: the campus budget crisis

READERS REFLECT: Dianne Lodge-Peters ’51, Invoking the Maroon

Veronica MacDonald ’99, The Pond says it all

LETTERS IN PRINT, WINTER 2002