Looming

Johnny Winthrop had spent seven wild semesters at State U. even when you compared them to the phenomenal standards set by the Benny twins thirteen years before. Johnny's accumulated record: he had cut more classes, stayed up more nights, drunk more beer, shot more pool, bowled more frames, played more euchre, and enjoyed more ping-pong than any second-semester Senior ever. But now, with graduation looming only a half-year away, the pressure was on. According to the agreement he'd signed in the presence of the Winthrop Trust Fund executive, if he didn't graduate he would forfeit his position as benefactor and access to the family millions. In a rare moment of clarity, Johnny asked State's Registrar to figure where he stood with his credits so he would know the minimum amount of effort he would have to expend his final semester.

In the six on-and-off years at State U. he was now only fifteen semester hours short of graduating. A full load of course work, but the Registrar encouraged him with the news that four of the five were fluff-courses, courses he could pass by using file notes and friends sitting in for him and memorizing the tests in the file. The fifth course was fluffier than fluff: it was Weaving One. "Not even 101, Johnny. Just 'One.'"

Young Winthrop had kept from getting kicked out of the university

(many times) by having learned the necessary tricks. One was to show up the first day of class with all the required books and materials: a good first impression was vital. The second was to learn exactly what he could get away with. The third, to make certain the minimum requirements were met no matter who did them or how much it cost. All this after he had carefully chosen the easiest courses under the eye of the sympathetic Registrar. So now the student sat in his final undergraduate class, certain would be the easiest of his career. In his cock-sureness he was totally oblivious of the reality he was about to face: Professor Audrey MacKenzie and the loom.

Johnny Winthrop was as shrewd in his ability to get out of work as his ancestors had been enmassing the large trust fund. His success was his ability to psyche out people. And it took only a glance to see that in Audrey he'd met what State U. students called a Stonewall. Experience had shown Johnny that the best way around such uncompromising people was to pretend he was so fascinated by the subject that he cut classes in order to do research. That and hand every assignment in on time, though always by a paid accomplice.

It didn't take long for the faculty to learn the ways of Johnnie Winthrop. But they didn't mind because he was relatively harmless and after all, his relatives donated large sums to the University Endowment Fund annually.

But newcomer Stonewall MacKenzie didn't care for politics, game playing, or psychology for that matter. Her mind was like the full, intricate tapestries she showed and sold around the world. To her, nothing beyond the borders of the loom existed. This meant that Student JW and Professor AM were classic opposites.

While the student held relentlessly to his party mentality, he was unable to fathom the professor's profound conviction that all that mattered was

proper set-up of the loom and the creation of a pre-planned, finished piece of weaving. And when she said thatall classes are required,, John knew he would have to treat this Stonewall differently. But after deep soul-searching he figured that with superhuman effort he could do it. Mainly because of the Trust Fund that hung so precariously over his head.

Day one, Initiation: in which the playboy is obliged to become a student.

Johnny, T-shirt and Jean-clad, sauntered into the art room hoping against hope that he could survive without having to change. He sat at the only available seat. It, like all the others, directly faced a table loom. The contraption looked like a Chinese Pagoda. Since Johnny saw himself as King, he smiled when the young, handsome, but very professional Audrey called its top the Castle . The professor then gave the names of all the parts obviously expecting the students to remember. She even gave them the chance to repeat the names out loud.

Most words were familiar to his ear, but when thrown together they created chaos. Harness, heddle, lever, beater, reed, back beam, ratchet, cloth beam, and the wildest of all, the warp and woof. By the time the instructor turned to the large, floor loom, Johnny's mind was swirling. When she came to the lam and treadles the student couldn't think straight and asked if he could take a break.

First encounter: in which the professor enforces her expected mode of conduct. Because Audrey believed a student came to class to learn, she summarily ignored JW's request. In that single, inconsequential hand gesture, she had established her authority. And with her words she made definite the dynamics of the entire course.

"I will now demonstrate dressing the loom."

"Well that's good," rationalized Johnny, now certain of the professor's boundaries. "It looks naked the way it is. All it's wearing is warps and

woofs and lams and treadles." He was glad he hadn't said it out loud lest his words might jeopardize his graduation.

"Watch closely," said Ms. MacKenzie, "because you will set up the loom each time you begin a new piece. That's right," she added, "weaving is like painting. Each time the artist begins anew she must make a frame, cut and stretch a canvas, and prepare it. In weaving, the warp is the frame and canvas you will work on. The last part, the woof, is like the paint. But you can't apply it until first you've set up your frame."

A curly-haired art major raised her hand and asked, "How far does the analogy hold, professor? Does the weaver have something similar to an easel and brush?"

"It's a good analogy and a good question," answered Audrey thoughtfully. "The correlate to the easel is the rack of yarn, here. And the brush, that would be the shuttle to which you attach the paints --- that is, the different colored yarns."

Johnny sensed that everyone in the class was taking in every word. Only he, overwhelmed by the detail, stared blurry-eyed. He repeated to himself, "I must pass this course, I must pass this course, I must pass this course."

Back at Headquarters, his name for the room he'd occupied since he was a Freshman, the playboy shook his head. He opened a small door on which he'd glued a poster of Madonna. Carefully he removed a can of beer from his case-sized fridge, snapped a cap, and flopped onto the double-size hammock stretched diagonally across his cluttered room.

"Damn," he said, sensing the futility of attempting to outdo Stonewall MacKenzie. "As horrendous as it sounds, I just might have to learn that bloody loom complete with its warps, woofs, lams, and treadles."

The highly sensitive, student radar detected the familiar beer-can snap.

Within minutes underclassmen, like moths around a light, swarmed around their experienced mentor.

"You're throwing in the towel after the first round?" said Stripper unbelievingly.

"Come on, Champ," added Streaker," it can't be all THAT bad."

"Shecan't be all that bad," corrected Jock. "Last semester was MacKenzie's first time here. I know three students who dropped out of Weaving One the first day. Boys, "the athlete said triumphantly, "I think our hero, Johnny-Boy here, has finally met the Invincible Foe."

There comes a time in everyone's life, if he follows the natural development of the human species, when he has to relinquish his old habits and accept the new. J.P. Winthrop was at such a point. Because he saw no way to out-smart Stonewall, all he could do was swing in his campus-famous hammock sheepishly.

To everyone's amazement, John went to Weaving One the second day. And the third, fourth, and every succeeding meeting of that historic semester. He also took the Midterm Exam himself, handed in the Final Project thathehad created, presented a portfolio of swatches made of different fabrics, colors, and patterns, and with no aid from the files (Professor MacKenzie had not been at State long enough to leave a paper trail), passed the Final which meant being responsible for every bit of knowledge the course offered including dying and textures. Consequently, Jonathan P. Winthrop not only passed the course with an impressive B+, graduated, and thereby became a legal beneficiary of the Winthrop Trust Fund honestly. The sequence of events surprised even him.

It must be noted that this story could contain a multitude of knock-down, drag-out encounters between the Peter Pan student and iron-fisted teacher, but it doesn't. This is because it was time for the boy to grow up,

his last chance to stop flying around and come down to earth. And isn't it true that at such moments those elements necessary to aid the transformation -- usually a person and some instrument -- are also present? In this case, the indomitable Professor Audrey MacKenzie and her ever-present loom.

After Commencement Jonathan Winthrop went to the weaving room. The looms, recently stripped of their last projects, stood like a village of naked pagodas. He never imagined that at this moment, free of the fetters of school, he would voluntarily visit a professor instead of leading the biggest Break-Away Party of State U history. But there he stood, among all that had confused him the first week: Castles, reeds and heddles, shuttles and bobbins, fabric-holding racks, and woofs, looms, and treadles. Humbly he sought the only professor in his ignoble career who had ignored the Winthrop mystique and demanded that he change.

John knew not to be flippant or act like the cock-of-the-roost. He also knew that because of Audrey he could never mimic the playboy in her presence. Stonewall MacKenzie had been his Marine Corps Boot Camp Drill Instructor and no one messed withthem..

"Ms. MacKenzie," said the young man hesitatingly. Audrey looked up attentively.

"So, what did you come and see me for?" The professor asked boldly. "I thought you'd be half-way through a case of champagne by now --anda roomful of girls."

John winced. The weaver was the only faculty member he respected and the remark hurt. Audrey continued.

"So, Jonathan P. Winthrop, you made it. Congratulations. Now you're as free as the wind."

John's mind raced through all he'd done the last semester. Being

overwhelmed by weaving terminology, sitting in once place longer than thirty minutes, struggling to dress the loom to create a perfect pattern. He remembered how he marveled at the beautiful tapestries the professor had made and shown in Paris and Vienna and London, and was equally awed by the inner strength of this woman. And here she was treating him like the former Johnnie Winthrop, Playboy Extraordinairre. But how was she to know what changes had occurred inside the growing young man? As he stared at the professional he felt that she was the only one he could accept such a reprimand for his wayward past.

All the man of a thousand glib words could say was, "I just wanted to thank you for all you've done. It was a great course."

Audrey MacKenzie stepped away from the dyes into a neutral corner and, as if lowering her guard, asked pleasantly, "Tell me, John, just what did you get out of Weaving One?"

The graduate stammered as he placed his tasseled mortar board on the edge of a loom. "You taught me that I couldn't get away with murder any more. That I had to change NOW. You made me realize I had to wake up and be accountable. All the focus it took to run those warp strings through the individual heddles, graph the design so what I created in my mind would come out the same in fabric. Believe me, Professor, you instilled in me a respect for orderliness, for looking at detail and not glossing over the surface."

Audrey smiled knowingly. The successful, refined woman put her hand on his shoulder and said in the tone of a stern yet affectionate big sister, "Winthrop, I just finished my first year of teaching so I can't say, "In all the years of teaching you're the single student who has changed the most radically." But I have a feeling that if I just finished my fortieth year I would say that. You've made an about face from that cocky con-artist of

the first week. Now, just a semester later, you seem to have joined the human race. You know what, Winthrop? I don't think you're going to squander your family's fortune after all."

Then, spontaneously, she kissed him on the forehead.

Poor John. He was as overpowered as at his first encounter. But he was lucid enough to realize that the kiss was his real graduation present.