The Power of Friendship

1 bus. 6 friends. 11 hours.

“There’s not a word yet for old friends you’ve just met.”

- Jim Henson

     Shared experience is the foundation of friendship. On an eleven-hour bus ride with 40 of my classmates, my friends and I had just that. This March on the 7th grade Washington, DC trip, four or five of my friends and I all sat together, backpacks filled with snacks and Office episodes, ready to sit back and melt the boring hours before we could arrive in the capital. That ended up being emphatically not the case. Fast forward to 6:30 PM in northern Maryland, and we’re stir crazy, filled with sugar, and are... well, 13 year old boys with nothing to do. I don’t remember how it started or many of the specifics, but what I do have are photos and sensory overload. My friends and I would scream into each others’ ears, go on long sugar-fueled rants about everything and everything, and shine phone flashlights at unassuming classmates. Max Merhige had brought a bag of oranges, which he proceeded to hurl at us, Will Simon sang a nonsensical song about who knows what, and Eli made inappropriate jokes. This exultation of immaturity has a much more important message than what you would be forgiven for assuming. Our DC trip, especially the bus ride, truly melded my friends and I together, leaving us closer than ever. Those dumb jokes, those teenage antics, changed us from people we’re friendly with to true, long-lasting, friends.

The Dustbin Magi

By Max Troiano

     The Gift of the Magi is a classic, well-known, and influential story. However, more and more, its religious tint seems out of place. 

     Unlike a surprisingly (perhaps worryingly) recent 1905, when this tale of love and sacrifice was written, the prevailing religion of the West is humanism; whose goal is to maximize human happiness and potential and to minimize human suffering. We should not kill, the humanist says, not because some great and omnipotent being in the sky declared “Thou shalt not kill”, but because murder causes human suffering. 

     This story is first and foremost about love, and sacrificing for those you love. Jim and Della sold their most treasured possessions not because God told them to, but because they wanted to get a Christmas gift for the person they loved most in this world. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more powerful and relatable theme.

     But then, as we leave the poor couple happily in each others’ arms on Christmas Eve, Mr. Henry finishes up with a hastily tacked-on paragraph about the Magi, who in their pious Christian wisdom gave gifts to the newborn Jesus. We should give Christmas gifts because the wise men did, not because it brings joy to us and those around us.

  114 years later, The Gift of the Magi is still an important story. It’s also still a story that deserves recognition as a great work. But if it wants to live on in our increasingly atheist modern world, the awkward final passage should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

The Power of Place

Summer at Camp Takodah

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery. Air, mountains, trees, people. I thought; “This is what it means to be happy.”
~Sylvia Plath

     Summer camp is a formative experience for millions of kids ever year, a place where they can relax, play, and get back in touch with nature. Three years ago, I too for the first time experienced the wonder of summer camp when I came to a century-old camp nestled among the lake-speckled forests of New England. Its name? Takodah, an amalgamation of the founders’ last names. 

The Power of Place

Summer at Camp Takodah

I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery. Air, mountains, trees, people. I thought; “This is what it means to be happy.”
~Sylvia Plath

     Summer camp is a formative experience for millions of kids ever year, a place where they can relax, play, and get back in touch with nature. Three years ago, I too for the first time experienced the wonder of summer camp when I came to a century-old camp nestled among the lake-speckled forests of New England. Its name? Takodah, an amalgamation of the founders’ last names. 

The Power of Family

The Melancholy Joy of Coming Home

”Only our immediate family can show us unconditional love.”

~Mr. Fitzsimmons

     No matter how bad a day has been, family will always be there to love you when you get home. And when it feels like everything in my day has gone wrong, family will help me see the silver lining. There was nothing that could have happened, nothing I could have done, that couldn’t have been washed away by the familiar sound of the front door closing and the warm air inside enveloping me. On one of the worst days of 7th grade, with piles of homework ahead of me and at the end of my fuse, it felt like nothing could get me out of my slump. But family was there to help. It was a damp day in late March or early April, when the whole world is drably waiting for spring to truly begin. I’d been up late the night before with a recurring nightmare, had nearly flunked a math test, was berated for my intellect by classmates, and had to spend an hour running in 55° rain while the other sports were allowed to stay inside. I was just done. Fed up with school, fed up with my classmates, fed up with sports, and fed up with the horrible weather. Then I walked in the door, wet, tired, and frazzled. My mom looked up, and without saying a word she just took me into her arms. In that one moment, that one hug, all the things I had been struggling with disappeared. All I cared about was me, and my mom, in a warm inviting house, surrounded by the melancholy joy of finally coming home.