Old Songs in a New Cafe by Robert James Waller Read Free Book Online

pages in some old book while
     the wood stove quietly crackled its way through the winter afternoons of Iowa.

Romance
    MR. PRESIDENT
    MEMBERS OF THE PLATFORM PARTY
    CANDIDATES FOR GRADUATION
    FACULTY MEMBERS
    PARENTS
    LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
    ______________________________________
    I t seems more than just a bit strange to be standing here today. It was in this very building, this room, that I received my
     B.A. degree in 1962. Prior to that event, however, I had spent an ungodly number of hours here in my wildly misspent youth.
     You see, I played basketball for what was then Iowa State Teachers College. For three years I ran all over this room in short
     pants, dribbling and shooting. I can still hear the voice of my late father as he sat along the sidelines over there and shouted
     words of encouragement as we battled the University of North Dakota or South Dakota State. He used to drive down from Rockford,
     Iowa, on cold winter nights and add his voice to the 4,000 students who invariably packed this place as we ran and jumped
     our way through season after season. My father always thought books could make you happier than basketballs. He was right.
     But that’s another story for another time.
    The point is, this place is filled with memories, and memories play an important part in what I want to talk about today.
     Since I am dean of the School of Business, I am absolutely sure a number of you turned out expecting to get some hot tips
     on microcomputer stocks or the latest news on money supply fluctuations. Sorry. Nor am I going to lecture you on (1) how well
     educated you are, (2) what wonderful opportunities you have before you, or (3) the importance of making great and lasting
     changes out there.
    What I want to talk about is something a little different, something that makes all the living and doing you are so anxious
     to get on with worthwhile. More than that, it makes the living and doing better—better in terms of quality and quantity. I
     am going to talk about romance.
    I looked up the definition of romance in several dictionaries. As I guessed, reading definitions of romance is about the most
     unromantic thing you can do. So I will not define romance, at least not directly. Rather, you will pick up a sense of what
     romance is by what I am going to say about it.
    I am a musician and a writer of songs. One of my songs, which I call “High Plains Afternoon,” starts like this:
    I see you now, as you were then,
    on a high plains afternoon.
    (Don’t you remember the flowers,
    don’t you remember the wind?)
    As naked you danced through the
    late autumn dust,
    while a threat of hard winter rode the cobalt horizon.
    (Don’t you remember those who were free?
    We drove them out of our lives.)
    As I sing the song, it carries a sense that I am singing about a woman. Ostensibly I am. But it is also a song about the idea
     of romance, as she (pardon the gender) dances before us and then out of our lives, if we do not treat her right. Romance,
     you see, is something you have to take care of—romance needs food and water and care, of a kind all her own. You can destroy
     romance, or at least drive her away, almost without knowing that you are doing it. Let me give you an example.
    A while back, a professor on this campus was finishing her doctorate, As part of her dissertation, she was conducting interviews
     with married folks about the subject of, well, marriage. When she asked Georgia Ann and me to participate, we thought it over.
     Then we politely said “no.” Now, we have been married for almost twenty-two years, and a high level of zest remains in our
     relationship, so probably we have some useful things to say about marriage. Why did we decide not to? Because we have agreed
     that too much analysis of certain things removes the romance from them. Our relationship is one of those things.
    Romance dances just beyond the firelight, in the corner of your eye. She does not like you to look at her directly;