Comes the Time to Leave Home

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the editorial/opinion page staff
published by the StarTribune
September 18, 1965


   THE BOY NEXT DOOR went away to school the other day.  As he drove off with his mother and father we yelled final goodbyes.  A lot of memories then came flooding back and I got a lump in my throat.
   Such farewells can be traumatic even when you have but fringe involvement.  I'd lived next door to this lad and his brothers and sisters and parents for seven years and felt a partial claim to him.  The eldest of six, he was the first to take off for new scenes and experiences.  Departure was a dramatic time.  Such occasions are rife with aches and poignant silences and hollow gags and small talk.
   He'll be less than 100 miles away.  He'll get home every three or four weeks.  Still, it's the start of the family breakup.  Things won't again be quite the same.

   OF COURSE, NO PARENT in his right mind would want his progeny around permanently, and those of practical and realistic turn perhaps rejoice when the kids are out from under foot and increasingly able to shift for themselves.
   Departure for college isn't an unmixed calamity for the high school grad, either.  If he's normal, he's chafed at parental restrictions for some years and is pained by the havoc wrought by the younger members of the clan.  The challenge of education gives him the chance to shake off the shackles and enjoy some peace and quiet and independence.
   However, the vast majority of youngsters leave home for college for the first time with heavy heart, acute nostalgia and the realization that little sister isn't such a pest after all.  Home is a sure sanctuary, a place to lick wounds and rekindle morale, a place where the meals are good and the service first class.  To be pushed out of it, even when the pushing is by mutual agreement and when the thirst for education is strong, is decidedly unsettling.
   That's how I felt it was with the quiet lad next door, and that's why my throat went tight.  I know that for him the bonds of home are inordinately strong.  The spirit in this household is unusual.  Sweetness and harmony naturally don't always prevail but the family is a cooperative unit, one in which the members have abundant fun and frequent laughs.  And the place is the play center for kids of all ages up and down the block, which is revealing.
   This is the first time the boy from next door has been on his own away from home, his parents tell me, and though they know he'll make out, they fear his situation will be difficult until he conquers homesickness and makes other adjustments.

   THIS MAY BE SO, but he's so much better equipped for new situations than college-bound lads were a generation or two ago that there's no comparison.  Today's young may be damned as delinquents, impudent loudmouths and defiers of authority, but they are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated than their parents and grandparents were.

The boy next door

   The boy next door and his contemporaries may wonder and worry about their future because of the Viet Nam imbroglio and the Communist threat, but they aren't unwary, apple-cheeked and home-clinging introverts who lack a sense of direction and who break down when dad and mother send them off to the ivied halls.
   My young friend will take it in stride.  I'll be eager to see him when he comes home for that first visit.  By then many barriers of doubt and uncertainty will be lifted.  He'll be on the way to becoming a man.


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