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One of my dearest friends, Andrea Benin, sent me this shirt during our first
year of college. I've known Andrea since third grade when she came up to me
during "let's rearrange our desks" day and asked if I wanted to sit
next to her. I don't know what prompted her to seek me out, but I'll be forever
glad that she did. We were great friends from that day on and survived together
through a plethora of dioramas, creative projects on the American Revolution,
birthday parties, the traumas of adolescence, learning French, algebra, AP U.S.
History, AP English, AP Biology, and, finally, college applications and high
school graduation. While she was at Dartmouth she drove down to Wellesley to
visit me a couple times, once with a rather dramatic incident that involved
her car being towed, and another time that involved an early morning, speed
record breaking drive back to New Hampshire for a sailing competition. Andrea
is an M.D. now and, after medical school at Tufts, she returned to New Hampshire
to the Dartmouth Hitchcock hospital for a residency in pediatrics. She's now
in Atlanta working for the CDC. One day in the future I know I'm going to call
her and ask for medical advice about my kids. Hopefully for her, it won't be
the middle of the night.
This t-shirt was the most comfortable one I had during college. It was my favorite
study shirt, and "gotta pull an all-nighter" shirt. I often wore it
under my Wellesley sweatshirt, privately savoring the irony of the "old
boys network" school being covered up by my women's college. Andrea once
told me that the feminists at Dartmouth are a lot more extreme than those at
Wellesley. I thought to myself, well, they probably have to be. It must be difficult
going against years of tradition that excluded women from education and may
still exist, at least in subtle ways. The lack of male students at Wellesley
makes the feminism less of a fight on campus, and more of a student bonding
experience. But all collegiate differences aside, to me this shirt was a comfortable
friend, representing a wonderful friend. The neck is now frayed and the letters
are wearing off. If I had it again as it was when it was new, I would still
be wearing it regularly.
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