Confirmed: my strong sense of school-as-home in terms of shared values.

The proof: two recent events, neither unusual at CdeP, but both, I think, worthy of pen-to-paper.

First, an email from a freshman to the whole School, this past Saturday night:  Swiss army knife found near Upper School after the pig roast. Has a large knife, small knife, and two bottle openers. Email me if it’s yours and I’ll drop it off at your mailbox tomorrow. Besides the obvious–what we do here, best we can, is return things that aren’t ours–there’s some insider info in this missive.

The luau, in fact, took a whole village over many months, from piglet to succulent pork shoulder. Faculty and staff (Kurt and Brandon, Spauldo, Jaime, Robert, Oscar, Jake, Richard and his Bon Appetit crew, the entire Vyhnal, Hooper, and McGowan families) linked arms, slop buckets, and spades with students (Molly, Leo, Sydney, Alex, Shelby, Harry, Annika, Jacqueline, Hunter, Nu, Nayla, Amy, Mia, Laura, Anne, Jasmynn, Izzy, Annie, Reed, and Jackson) to feed and then arrange for or tend to the slaughter, preparation, roasting-pit excavation, and slow cooking of one swell swine.

The mailbox reference? Student boxes in the Commons are not locked, but rather open from both sides for delivery either direction, with a roster of who’s got which box taped to the wall.

The ubiquity of knives on campus speaks for itself.

Second, this: During exams I noticed two long, disappointing scratches in the seminar table in the classroom I teach in. It didn’t take long to figure out what had happened, once I spied the cardboard blocks sculpture high up on top of one of the beams not far from the vaulted ceiling. (Creative procrastination? A parting gift to us English teachers? Whatevs; intention was not my concern.) Some shenaniganistas had needed more height than simply standing on the table would afford in order to build it, so they’d put a chair  top of the table to reach. The chair had moved, leaving the telltale marks.

At Assembly following Spring Break, I reluctantly announced that there’d been some damage to the table  and asked the masterminds to see me so I could show them how to repair it. I thought it might be a few days before someone’s conscience kicked in. But I turned around after the crowd broke up for lunch and classes to find two senior boys right there, ready to ‘fess up and do what they could to rectify the situation. I told them I’d leave some furniture oil and rags on the table by the end of the class day. Next morning, the table glowed, the marks all but melted back into the sheen of oak.

Thacher is, of course, an imperfect paradise. I just saw a dining room mug sitting on a table near the Library, a dried-up tea bag stuck to the inside–someone definitely not returning something to its owner. And, more sadly, someone’s mum’s camera was taken from a bench near the Pergola before break. Free will sometimes leaves trash, real or metaphoric.

But here, most of the time, thankfully not so much. The pillars of Honor, Fairness, Kindness, and Truth might need refinishing now and again, but they’re made of solid, enduring timber. I’m glad that they’re more than just decoration in this casa in which we–some very lucky folks–live and work.