Chapter 90: Lobster in Lexington

Wednesday, February 15, 1984

Tom’s exam was tough, but I felt certain I did well, and so did the others. This one spent a lot of time on logic, logical fallacies, confirmation bias, information silos, and so many other things that would only become more and more important as the years went on.

No other government teacher at Memorial was teaching this. It wasn’t part of the curriculum, it wasn’t in the book, and it wasn’t even on the AP for the most part. The closest anyone else got was misuse of statistics, but Tom covered that in far more depth, too.

Tom wanted us to think, first and foremost, and you can’t really think if you’re not getting all of the information. Letting your brain convince you that, just because everything you read says X, X must be the truth, while ignoring the little things hiding in plain sight that say X might not be the whole truth at all, is easy to do. Everyone does it, but being aware of it and learning to catch it matters.

In the words of a cheap but true aphorism, ‘common sense isn’t.’ It needs to be taught, and practiced, and even then it’ll let you down, because all of us ‘know’ hundreds of things that aren’t actually true. Some of them are only a little wrong, but many of them are completely wrong, and some of them matter.

My college chemistry professor made that point on the first day of class, saying something very close to ‘Nearly everything I tell you in this class will be wrong. It’ll almost be right, but I’ll be ignoring hundreds of nuances, exceptions, details, special cases, and all manner of other things. If you become a real chemist, those things will matter. If you don’t, they won’t. What I teach will be close enough. Either way, your intuition is going to try to trick you again and again. Pay attention!’

That stuck with me all these years because it was simple and true. It was the first time I’d had a teacher be so blunt about the limitations of ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ and ‘knowledge’ and ‘accuracy,’ or at least a teacher in a class in a hard science.

Thursday, February 16, 1984

After school, we headed right home to pack. Our flight out was at nine tomorrow. We’d arrive at two with the change of time zones, which should give us plenty of time to arrive and compete. It wasn’t ideal, but we’d decided to save the extra travel day this time. This was, for most purposes, a regular high school tournament (if a very big one with many top teams), and we could run on a more normal schedule.

By this point, we pretty much kept our suitcases packed with all of the basics and simply rotated dirty clothes out and clean clothes in. It saved time, and we were traveling all the time. I’d even taken to refreshing socks, underwear, pants, and a couple of nice (but not dressy) shirts, simply because that would take me on any regular trip and serve as a nice base for a Debate trip. For Debate, I’d need my garment bag, of course. That had to be packed each time, or I’d have a lot of wrinkled items.

It didn’t take us long to pack, but we’d wanted to spend the evening at home anyway. We’d be gone until Sunday evening, after all, and we’d almost certainly be gone next weekend as well.

It amused me that others were probably spending a far more panicked night packing and repacking for Ben Morgenstern’s party. Social event of the year, right? Social event for all four years for anyone who got one of the coveted invitations, I suspected. Wear the wrong outfit and all might be lost.

Just after I’d thought of that, Angie came over and said, “You know, another Angie would be dying tonight.”

“Dying, or crying?”

“Both! New Orleans! Chartered planes! Huge party!”

“And now?”

“Going to Lexington, Massachusetts to hang out in some high school with a bunch of nerds,” she said, then giggled. “Couldn’t be happier!”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Seriously, I just hope there are good stories Monday.”

“What are the odds?” I said.

“Extremely high, but the good ones will be girls-only.”

“That’s always the case.”

“Isn’t it, though?” she said, grinning and heading back to her room.

Friday, February 17, 1984

We left the house extra-early, even before Dad, and picked up Jas, Paige, Cammie, and Carole. After that, it was off to the airport. We arrived in plenty of time for the flight, and so did everyone else. Meg and Steffie counted noses twice, just to be sure.

Our traveling lineup had changed somewhat, if not a lot. Besides the six of us, this trip included Sue, Gene, Amit, Jaya, Anne, Megan, Eric, Danny, Linda, Darla, Lori, Natasha, and Penny from the Debate side of things. From the Drama side, we had Sheila, Lexi, Jess, Ben, and Penny.

That was still twenty-four of us. Few schools would be bringing more. It was a drop-off for us, but this was an expensive trip. Besides the LDers, who couldn’t qualify for ToC at all, most of us who went were either qualified (and seeking experience) or had a reasonable shot at qualifying. Natasha and Penny were an exception, being a long shot, but they had years ahead of them and this was a great chance to get more experience competing at a high level.

They’d gotten us all seats together. I don’t think we were particularly difficult passengers — just talkative ones. At least together we would mostly just disturb each other.

We landed at Logan Airport (where I’d last been in 2014, when it had looked very different), got our bags, and boarded the bus they’d rented to head up to Lexington. We had little alternative but to rent a bus; the high school wasn’t close to any lodging, so we’d have to bus to and from the tournament. Cabs would have worked, but we wouldn’t have saved much, and Meg and Steffie (and Principal Riggs!) would be happier with us all together.

Most of us had time to call home from the airport, though I’m sure some people had to call from the motel. I did make a call from the motel, but it was to Maxine, who informed me that the home inspector had found some minor but notable damage, including some partially rotten floorboards and some minor mold. We could fix those, and the contract included a clause allowing adjustments for known issues. These certainly appeared to count, and Maxine was on it, working with the seller to adjust things accordingly. None of the issues rose to the level of a safety hazard, thankfully (though the mold might have had people in a panic in later years — a panic which had significantly subsided years later).

The appraiser wouldn’t be able to take a look until Monday, but Maxine was pretty certain it would come out fine. The home inspector’s job was to look for problems; the appraiser’s job was to look for value. They overlapped, but were not the same.

I had very little doubt that we were the only kids at the Lexington tournament working on a home purchase. Most likely we were the only kids to ever compete at the Lexington tournament while in the middle of buying a home.

Check-in at Lexington was smooth, as I’d expected. Most (clearly not all, based on UH’s example, but most) ToC qualifying tournaments were run by experienced teams who knew how to make everything run efficiently.

We found ourselves in the cafeteria before long. Our first rounds were already posted, though they wouldn’t start for nearly an hour. Since they were, we figured out where we were going ahead of time.

Christopher came over after about fifteen minutes. I stood to greet him.

“Hey!” he said.

“Hi!” I said. “Long time no see!”

He chuckled. “It’d be weird if that wasn’t true.”

“Hi, Christopher,” Cammie said.

“Hey, Cammie. Good to see you!”

I gestured. “This is my girlfriend Jasmine, who you heard plenty about.”

“You do exist!” he said, offering his hand.

Jas hugged him instead. “I do!”

Christopher seemed surprised, but also happy.

“I showed you pictures, and Cammie vouched for my truthfulness,” I said.

“Or did I?” Cammie said, smirking.

Everyone laughed. Fortunately, including Cammie.

Christopher and I caught up a bit. He and his partner had qualified for ToC a couple of weeks ago, so we’d be seeing them there. They were, of course, long since qualified for their state tournament as well.

He had to get back to helping out behind the scenes after about fifteen minutes, and we needed to get on our way to our rounds anyway, so we shook hands and said goodbye. It’d been nice to catch up with him, but I doubted he was someone who would be in my orbit for long.

Our evening rounds were memorable mostly for being a quiet reminder of how far we’d come. Both were against teams from top programs: Oak Park & River Forest (yes, two names, one school) High School, from Oak Forest, Illinois (a team from which had won ToC last year) and Firestone in Akron, which had a long track record of success. Neither round was particularly difficult, in either my or Cammie’s opinion.

Now, even top programs have weak teams, but these didn’t feel weak. For all of our recent ‘struggles,’ we’d struggled against teams we knew were really good. These teams? Good, but we were better.

Extemp was its usual enigma. Great? Horrible? Only the judges knew. I had this tournament or UT to qualify for ToC. I’d never win at ToC, and I wouldn’t even want to win, not with Amit on my team, but it’d be fun to compete.

We were back to the hotel by eleven and asleep within half an hour. I’d wound up sharing a bed with Gene this time. Not the first time, not by a long shot, but approaching the last time. I had three more tournaments where that was likely to happen: UT, State, and ToC. Even if more than a couple of boys made it to Nationals, though, I’d spring for my own room. I wouldn’t take no for an answer, either. Memorial would no longer be ‘in loco parentis,’ not even technically, not then.