Sunday, March 1, 2009

Dana, Dana, Dana...


As long as I've been alive, my mom has not gone a week without bringing up Dana Hall, so I tend to roll my eyes and tune out whenever she does. Dana Hall is the prestigious, all-girl boarding school she attended. Now, I have my own Dana story.
My wife Sonya works at the College of William & Mary with a professor named Ed Felton who, for some reason, has always shown interest in me and my goings-on. On Friday, I finally met Dr. Felton, and he seems like a nice guy. He even invited us out to dinner. I'm not sure when we'll make that happen, but it might be nice. Who knows?
We had dinner than night with my mom, so I told her about our encounter with Dr. Felton, and she turned white. She is prone towards reactions like that to pretty mundane events, but I asked what was wrong, anyway. She asked,"is he from Boston?" Sonya said, "well, he went to Harvard." Mom said, "Does he have a son named Thad, or Thadford?" Sonya said, "Yes, he does have a son named Thad." By this time, Sonya and I are speculating that maybe mom dated this guy or something - even though Sonya knew he was much older, and happily married, and a pastor.
Mom began to tell us that Ed Felton was the name of her "house-father" at Dana Hall in 1968. She remembers playing with baby-Thad. This is truly nuts! She has some story about Mrs. Felton and bacon, and 'townies', and baseball bats. Is there a more elitist/obnoxious term than 'townie'? Again, I tuned that whole part out because I had probably heard it, or I was still fixated on the truly unique part of this tale.
Sonya has yet to see Dr. Felton to tell him about all this, but I'm sure he will be as shocked as we. I finally have a reason to feel a connection to Dana Hall that is my own, and that is pretty cool.

1 comment:

Aunt So-So said...

I had a dream that I told Dr. Felton about this and he had no idea what I was talking about, then walked away very annoyed. A similar thing happened just after I saw Keanu Reeves at Heathrow in 1993. I got to my hotel and fell asleep. I dreamt that I told all my friends about my Keanu sighting and they told me that he told them all it wasn't true.