Chapter Seventy Two:     Harvard

Addy gave a talk at Harvard University. Arrangements had been made just after we had announced that our Chrome Squatch USA Tour would be performing a concert in Boston on the 9th of June; someone on Harvard's event booking faculty had noticed and invited Addy to make a presentation, since we would be passing through the area anyway.

Addy was enthusiastic: I mean Harvard, right? Back when he was a teen-ager, Addy and Art had done the public speaking circuit around the West Coast, but had never gotten farther East than Spokane. So this would be his first speech at Harvard, or any of the prestigious ivy league universities.

Art and Addy's public speaking career had started out by speaking mostly at public schools, back when Addy was only a high-school student himself and Art was still a teacher. They "graduated" to colleges and universities in Washington, Oregon and California; also to various Lion's clubs and city councils all up and down the coast. They had earned some good money on the speaker circuit and Addy became quite professional at giving speeches due to lots of practice.

But since then we've learned that he's actually been specifically bred to be an Orator, which is a thing the Nokhontli do. The classic Shamanistic oral tradition, you know. And as a deliberately conceived Nokhon Orator, Addy is gifted with innate talents: that amazing phonographic memory, his healthy instinct for organizing information into interesting presentations, and a just wonderful voice, powerful but pleasant. All those same qualities that make him the successful singer/songwriter we know and love, as well as official spokesman for the Nokhon Nation Project.

Back then, those speeches were mostly about his own personal experience as the only English-speaking Sasquatch in the world, describing how he felt more like a regular American teen-ager than a "Bigfoot", which was a species just as much a mystery to him as to the rest of us. Audiences sympathized with him, even those who had assumed a Bigfoot was some kind of ape. His impressive vocabulary, his appealing personality and his honest delivery won people over to a truth: that Adam Leroy Forest was obviously an intelligent and admirable human being.

That message had been important at the time, back when Addy's human rights were not yet legally established. There had been some decidedly inhumane plans to carve up the captive monkey-boy and make money off his carcass. I deliberately name Nascent Medicinal Corporation as an example, an evil but now-bankrupted corporation who sanctioned kidnapping Addy when the poor little kid was only 5 years old. Genuine bad guys were out to harm him, but his speaking talent saved him: he hypnotized them. He still does that to an audience. Especially me, I love his voice.

Addy didn't want to arrive at Harvard with an entourage (like all 20 of us on the whole Chrome Squatch Tour), but I insisted on coming along, figuring I'd always been his academic partner. All that stuff in his amazing memory comes from the hundreds of books I'd read aloud to him when we were kids, because I could read and he couldn't. Addy agreed, so it was just him and me at Harvard that day. Mainly we both just wanted to see that famous university, still being academics ourselves.

As for Addy's planned speech, I'd already heard some version of it many times. Actually, I'd helped compose it. Now instead of being about the little lost and lonely Bigfoot boy the new message would be about the Nokhon Nation Project and the human rights of ALL squatches. That was the subject Addy usually addressed these days and he figured that a presentation to Harvard would end up on YouTube, which would be fine. He intended it to be an advertisement for the NNP, so he offered to waive any speaker's fee, which the university's rectors appreciated. Especially since Adam fell into the category of Popular Celebrity, which could demand a very high price. But Addy felt that he would be earning enough money for the concert in Boston and had no wish to be greedy.

Si Bintzen, our manager, got kind of upset when he heard that. He complained, ”You could have gouged Harvard for maybe $20,000 for that presentation," he ranted, "the whole point of going on tour is to generate money for S&F. It's called business!" But Adam was unruffled and answered back, "It was a chance for me to promote the NNP, which has nothing to do with our music. You've arranged this concert tour, fair enough that you call some shots, but I'm the one in charge of all NNP business-- which IS non-profit-- so I really don't need to ask for permission."

We'd played our concert in Boston Tuesday evening, which went fine. I won't go into detail about that, seen one concert... etc. The next day (Wednesday, 9th of June) as the others took a free day to visit Boston and Cambridge, Addy and I got dropped off at the Harvard campus just before noon. We'd planned to casually walk across the greens to the library, but were recognized immediately (since they were expecting us anyway) and a crowd followed us, like a parade. It was all right, everyone was friendly and excited to meet us.

We were met by an official welcoming committee of students and faculty, taken to the Commons for lunch, given a brief tour of the Harvard facilities and several of the famous fraternity and sorority houses. Naturally, we were aware that Harvard has a reputation as one of the best universities in the world and is an icon of American culture, although neither of us expected that to be made obvious within a passing first visit. Even so, we were both immediately impressed by the beautiful campus and the intellectual level of the students we met; young people who spoke with confidence and knew how to ask good questions. Addy and I are used to fans who knew a lot about us as popular musicians, but these students also knew about us both as academics and anthropologists, they had done research.

Addy was to speak in Widener Library at 3:00pm. But there was a much bigger turnout than the rectors had expected-- Addy's talk would be an academic presentation, an anthropological discourse about Nokhon culture-- but all those young students were also quite aware that Squatch & Friends was presently touring the USA with a rock and roll band and had put on a show in Boston the evening before, which put Adam in the category of cool dude and must-see.

The lecture hall would have been overfilled three times beyond capacity, but it was a pleasant afternoon and the event was easily moved outdoors to Harvard Yard, in front of the library building, by simply setting up a public address system on the lawn like they often do at graduation day ceremonies, inviting the crowd to sit on the grass. Most of the audience was young, so it was what they were accustomed to; they even had blankets to sit on. Folding chairs were provided for less flexible dignitaries of the academic faculty.

Adam started out standing on the library stairs, not far up, just enough to make him visible to his audience but neither elevated nor removed from them, since his big size already did that. He began with his standard speech for these events, about the ideas motivating the Nokhon Nation Project, but then was inspired to change the subject. He felt that the quality of this audience required an upgrade.

Adam has always been an entertaining speaker; capable of pulling his audience in close, but this time he came down from the steps and squatted (since Nokons hardly ever sit) on the grass to be with them. He was still higher than anyone else and could clearly be seen from anywhere on Harvard Yard.

"Harvard is a famous university, considered one of the best in the world. Big campus, filled with buildings, classrooms, desks, chairs, blackboards, computers, offices, everything you need to facilitate the learning process and students come here to learn the epitome of what their culture has to offer. Those basic amenities tend to be somewhat duplicated in most universities scattered around the world. You'd think universities are universal.

"But the Nokhontli also have universities. Only a very few, maybe three, but they are conceptually different than what you are used to, which is probably not a surprise. Nokhontli is not a written language, so that good old oral tradition is all you get. Books, paper, blackboards, computers, visual aids; none of those necessities exist in their academic system. And yet, there is a campus, of sorts, where young people come to learn what their culture requires them to know, just like here. Also a gathering of professors and experts, all dedicated to teaching what must not be forgotten.

"So what do they learn about? Considering that science and technology are not considered proper-- or even decent --the subject matter tends to be about magic and psychic abilities. Shaman stuff."

A student called out, "Sounds more like Hogwarts!"

"Yeah, kinda, except that this place actually exists," Addy responded.

He went on to speak about the Nokhon version of a rounded education starting with Atli, basic survival techniques for culture without technology or artifacts, the philosophy behind such an aesthetic lifestyle and ending with usable magic. He admitted that he was sworn to silence about some things, such as the physical location of the university, for obvious reasons.

There were many interesting questions and the meeting went on for two hours. We were invited to visit one of the fraternity houses for a little "get-together", so we went along for the ride. Once again we were impressed by the academic level of the party talk-- especially if we compared them to the after parties we experienced on our concert tour, where the subject matter was often "Hey man, I was SO stoned..." These kids were talking about political ramifications of the Roman Empire and bitcoins, educated conversations suggesting solutions to planetary problems rather than just complaining about them. These kids were wise!