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Calvin Hazzard looked out his office window to the grungy strip of stores along the trolley tracks and thought about the view from the lush green bluff over the Hudson River. Then he walked down the hall to the office of the English department chair and turned in his resignation. |
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Before this, he had never thought of living anywhere else but in Boston. More than half his adult life had been spent here. He had gone to Northeastern University and Harvard, and for the last dozen years had taught at Middlesex State College, in the heart of the city. Yet after two decades he had grown weary of urban life: of the concrete and steel, the congestion, the bumper-to-bumper commute, and, of course, the soaring street violence that was rapidly diminishing the quality of life. Every week the student newspaper published a list of robberies and muggings on campus. Two years ago a student was murdered on the way to her car. |
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While it was never an option, he had for years harbored a yearning for a simpler, greener worldmaybe someplace in Vermont or Maine, taking his job at a picturesque little college with a horizon of mountains instead of Vito's Onion-and-Steak Subs. Then two weeks ago the Fed-Expressed letter arrived, and now he was thinking of living out the rest of his life in Argyle-on-the-Hudson, New York, a flossy little town distinguished by its postcardy views, secluded summer estates and a small, handsome technical college. |
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"New York Polytechnic Institute," said Charlie Cobb, looking at Calvin's letter. "Isn't that where you gave a paper?" |
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"The same place." Last month, on an unexpected invitation, he |
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