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hardly a heavy doper, she did introduce good ol' Lutheran Rob to the pleasures of marijuana (or 'Mary Jane' as she mockingly liked to call it), New Orleans blues, dawn as seen from the dewy crest of Stratterhom Park, oral sex (the notion of a clitoris had pretty much been an abstraction to him), and Democratic politics. Lisa's father was a congressman who had been a good friend of Adlai Stevenson's, a man who had always reminded Rob of a greatly respected child molester.
        Lisa changed virtually everything about Rob. His hair got long, his grade average went from a 3.8 to a 2.1, he started wearing the same shirt two days in a row, he started seeing the humour in the Three Stooges, he began experiencing vastly shifting mood changes depending on how things were going with Lisa, and he became a Democrat.
        He even went to one SDS meeting with Lisa, though when he met the leader afterward he was totally put off. The leader- a fierce, bearded, crazed looking kid who carried a Bowie knife in his belt-complained that "since I joined SDS, my old man has cut my monthly allowance in half." The kid saw no humour in this. Had Lenin or Trotsky got allowances while attempting to overthrow their government? While Rob's opinion of mainstream liberalism had changed, his feelings about campus radicals hadn't. They still seemed like self indulgent children to him.
        Lisa had changed one other thing about Rob: his plans for the future. His father had just assumed that after college, Rob would come back to Minneapolis and start work at one of the department stores, learning the business from the lowliest position to the most exalted. Eventually, of course, Rob's father would pass the management of the stores over to Rob.
        But as graduation approached, Rob began to share Lisa's fantasy of heading for Mexico after college, and "living near the water somewhere and having lots of dope and getting away from all the hypocritical bullshit in this country. You know?"
        So those were their plans anyway. But then Lisa met Michael.
        Michael Blumenthal was a federal civil rights lawyer who was at the university giving a lecture to pre-law students. At this time, Lisa's plans-after returning from her eyrie in Mexico- were to become a lawyer. So she was in Michael Blumenthal's audience.
        As she later told it to Rob, she just couldn't help what happened. There seemed to be an inevitability about her reaction to his dark good looks, his curious mixing of anger and compassion, and his intense desire to make the world a better place. After the lecture, she went up and introduced herself, and they became so engrossed in their conversation about his civil rights work in the South that they continued it in the student union over coffee, and then in a little bar several blocks away over beers, and finally in her apartment where, after pizza and ungodly amounts of marijuana, they climbed into her rumpled bed and made love.
        And three days later ran off to Missouri to elope.
        She told Rob all this the day after she got back from Missouri. She had only two weeks to go till graduation and then she and Michael were moving back to New York, him working for the government and her going to Columbia.
        She hoped Rob would understand, crazy as it all was. She was sure Rob would find the exact right woman for himself very soon now because there wasn't anybody sweeter or more deserving anywhere on the planet than Rob Lindstrom and she'd never forget him or all the wonderful times they'd had.
        But right now she had to run. (A quick wet kiss on the cheek- the goddamn cheek-and then she was gone from his life forever.)
        Just like that.
        So Rob went home to his father's stores. He dealt with the 'Lisa problem' as his mother had taken to calling it by reverting to his former self (at least externally). He cut his hair, he began wearing ties and sports jackets again, he spent Sunday