I’m sitting in a narrow, windowless room off the Ventura County Hall of Justice, three days before the pre-season athletes and riders return to Thacher for the start of the school year. Officially, I’m in the “Telephone Room”–and there is, in fact, one AT&T pay phone attached to the oddly carpeted wall. Two bare places flanking the old clunker point to where a pair of phones used to hang–ghosts of pre-cell-phone times. Four of us prospective jurors have taken up residence here for the waiting hours. A woman at the far left is making sales calls; next to her is a young guy alternately reading Car and Driver and scrolling through various apps on his notepad. An older guy to my right is paying bills. He’s definitively old school, using a pen, a paper checkbook, and a small calculator. We all settle in for the first leg of the day.

When I run up against a wifi glitch, the helper choice is obvious. I politely (OK, a little plaintively) ask the younger one, Victor, if he can figure it out. My computer certifies that I’m in the “jurynet” matrix, but my browser claims otherwise, over and over, refusing to hand over a single website. Generously, Victor has typed something into his notepad and is offering suggestions. Still, no access. When he and I both run out of ideas (Jerry! Vic! Where are you?!? No dialing 257 from here, drat it all), I leave our little room to seek another Apple user in the Hall: I spy. Soon, I’m introducing myself to Greg, who willingly leaves his own work to take a gander at my problem. Under his tutelage, I try something new–and boingo! It works. I thank him, joking that I could–should–pay him the going wage for IT assistance.

So, an hour on, when I need to use the restroom, I feel as if I’ve fully made the acquaintance and taken stock of enough character here to look left and right and ask, “OK if I leave my stuff here? Will you watch it for me?” My wallet’s right in my briefcase, and my phone. My laptop’s still on my section of counter. I do realize I’m taking at least something of a risk here, but there’s a tug in me to go for it, to trust three strangers. To assume the best of them by glimpsing the best in them. It’s what I do, day in and day out, at School, which is to say, at home. And, come on! We’re in the Hall of Justice.

Decades ago, I was in an admission gathering–back when I headed up that office–in which my road warrior colleague, Mark Holman CdeP 1986, was asked by a parent, “So you’ve raved and raved about Thacher and the preparation it gave you for life in college. Was there anything Thacher didn’t prepare you for?” Mark was silent for a moment, then answered with a firm, “Yes.”

I held my breath and wondered what might come next.

“It didn’t prepare me for the dishonesty I ran into–in the dorm, with some stealing, and in classes, the cheating that sometimes went on.”

So there it is: the Beyond the Thacher Bubble dilemma. It’s the challenge and responsibility of bringing principles we live by at School into community behavior elsewhere. But how much of Honor, Fairness, Kindness, and Truth should we take into the world? How often to be skeptical, wary, cautious, and when? The answer depends, clearly, on the circumstances.  Or not so clearly.

All I know for now, for sure, is that all my stuff is completely intact when I get back from the bathroom, Victor, Jane, and Ed all looking  up and smiling when I cross the threshold.