It is all over but the leaving, now. How can you get these emotions in less than a month? Strange is the human heart.

We actually ARE Harvard people now, in our small way. Amazing. But it was the commitment of Marie-Christine and Roger Porter that made us feel this way. I think back over the last two days and things begin to blur together.

The rest of International Forum went well. People were on their best behavior, and there were a lot of folks who had something to say.  I had many favorable comments from students and faculty alike. I set my wristwatch in front of me and began to get agitated when the speakers went longer than three minutes. I was worried about the length of time our three classmates from Tawian might need. They have a big issue and they call it the PRC. We have a Saudi and two representatives of Emirs from the Gulf. I was afraid the  magnitude of the problems we all face would cause the discussion to spin out of control. These are good people with tough issues.  I managed to keep the presentations moving, and wove them together with smooth patter and appreciation for the folkways of East and West Africa, SE Asia, the European Union and the represented states of the Former Soviet Union.

Roger told me he thought it went well, and he is as good an authority as there is. Everybody got on and off in under ninety minutes, everyone was nice and there was such a mass of fascinating stories that we could have spent the whole period on any one of them. I was beat. It is a drain keeping your attention on what is happening simultaneously with what is happening next.

There was a pleasant synergy and people stayed and chatted in the conference room or worked on the readings for the last day of class. Roger spoke after a dinner of enormous slabs of lasagna, with marinara sauce ladled over the top. He told tales of the White House, some moments of watching greatness with a certain intimacy. It is touching to hear of our leaders seen in personal perspective. I particularly liked the observation that when the President gets to the motorcade, the motorcade is going to start, and damn the hindmost. They can hoof it. I suppose the realization of who Roger really is came to me at the dinner. He had Robert Rubin�s job in the first Bush Administration. Rubin went on to take Treasury. It is interesting to see how it all fits together, and what you say when the President calls you up with a question. He had another good couple of stories, the ones that start out �This has to stay in this room,� so that is where they shall stay. Though it is too droll and too delicious to forget. It was a good evening.

I overslept Thursday morning and forgot what I had overslept from. It was down to the last three classes. Our last seminar meeting was sort of sad. These are remarkable people and it has been a pleasure to have shared this time with them. Saleh, the Minister from Nigeria. Pat, the finance executive who pays five million people, including me. Beth, our gracious facilitator, Mistress of all Air Force Training. The vivacious Kim, her eyes flashing, and Vladmir from the UN. Perhaps the smartest of the lot is Vladimir.  Dan is the most organized. And Jill the attorney, with the agile mind and incisive wit. I described her wit as caustic in class, and I think she didn�t understand what I meant. What I was trying to say was that she did not suffer fools. There is nothing wrong with that.

We spent the morning with David Gergin, former counselor to four Presidents. I saw him walk up to the building, looking exactly like David Gergin, only a bit older. He talked to the other class first, while we worked on negotiations. Keith was good. He is serene and analytic and we talked about Mediators and Arbitrators and the strange permutations of the two. There was a controversy about objectivity and local politics- a great issue which is worth a case study in its own right.

Mr. Gergin went nearly all the way through the first break. I saw Cindy out by our little break area and she said it was good. Mona said she wanted fruit, but that the peaches were too big. I showed how to slice one with the tongs, and she said Agents were very resourceful. I could have said I learned it from the intense training in salami-slicing budgets I have had over the ten years. But I didn�t. I smoked, visited the little Senior Executives room, and otherwise prepared myself to pay full attention to an insiders view of how to deal with the media.

There was some entertaining pandemonium at the beginning. Mr. Gergin was determined to use a wireless microphone, a technology which had not here-to-fore been utilized for us. There were multiple black boxes, and as he began his remarks Shannon from NASA opened the door and waited patiently to get his attention.

�You are broadcasting to the other classroom� she said.

There followed some of the usual confusion when the Audio-Visual technician came to rectify the problem, and a lady came with an important personal message for Mr. Gergin, I think about a car alarm. At least I think that is what they were whispering about to each other, our class and maybe three or four other classrooms in the JFK School of Government.

We finally got on track and got the Gergin view of how things work. There is no one more qualified to talk about the relationship of the press and the Government. The overall tone of his remarks was relief in being able to say what he thinks, and a bemused mystification at how the current media discourse has degenerated into a shouting match on obscure cable channels. David has a directorship of a center here, one of those chairs funded under the gigantic Harvard endowment, the most magnificent in the world. 

Dutch got the opportunity to give us the valedictory remarks from the teaching staff. He wished us well as we leave this ivory tower, and to take what was useful and brandish it against the world to change it for the better. It was a sublime irony to have Youth task Age to go out and make a difference, but it was sincere and good and absolutely true. We erupted in applause and realized we were done, done except for a dinner at the Divinity School.

I thought about Dutch�s concluding remarks as I walked back up JFK Street on the way home. I was with Cindy and Mona and we already had that going-home buzz. But it was true. These wonderful people at Harvard think about things, work it out, test the data and build the models. Careful at all times not to pollute the model with facts, or was it vice versa? But the point was their job was not done until the models were applied to reality.

I made my mind up to establish a five point plan with metrics for verification and report back.

By tomorrow afternoon I will be awash in unanswered mail and overdue bills. Women to call back, fences to mend and a job to attend to. A set of college applications to draft and coordinate with al interested parties. Goodness, a lot to do. Then a long drive to take my older son back to college. Fall is coming on soon, Labor Day just around the corner. Hard to believe in this heat.

I wish I could just click my heels and say �There�s no place like home, No place like home.�

Copyright 2002 Vic Socotra