Of course, capturing the scenic beauty of our campus blanketed in snow or Bread Loaf on an autumn afternoon is a little bit like shooting fish in a barrel—if we’re not adequately conveying a sense of place in these pages, then we’re doing something wrong. But as I was reminded when we were putting this issue together, the very concept of a “sense of place” is more than the physical characteristics that define a landscape, but also one’s relationship—past or present—with those surroundings.

The writer Susan Orlean has published a collection of stories under the title My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere, and in these pieces, she says that where the stories unfolded was “almost as important as the story itself.” In some instances, she adds, “the place was the story.”

This is can be said about Emily Peterson’s feature in this issue, “Can the Louisiana Coast Be Saved?” And its exactly what we talk about when we discuss a story with a “strong sense of place,” precisely because her exhaustively reported narrative of a region in peril is told in a voice steeped in experience—in this case, her family’s intimate relationship with the Louisiana coast and its waterways.

In Leah Koenig’s back-page essay, “The Plunge,” Thoreau’s Walden Pond is as much a character as it is a location. And while our profile of Conor Shapiro ’03 is firmly routed in rural, post-earthquake Haiti, writer Deborah Sontag includes an observation that other writers might not have made—the effect, the lure, that the country and its people had on Conor as a teenager when he first visited Haiti while a sophomore at Middlebury.

So this got me thinking (a dangerous thing, some will tell you)—does Middlebury attract students who are naturally drawn to and appreciative of a “sense of place,” or is this behavior learned, acquired by spending four years in a, well, place like Middlebury?

I recently put this question to Christopher Shaw, a visiting lecturer in English and American literatures and himself a fair chronicler of place (for years he edited Adirondack Life magazine, and he’s the author of the acclaimed Sacred Monkey River: A Canoe Trip with the Gods). Each spring, Shaw teaches a course called Writing the Journey, and he says that while place, “being one of the basic elements of literature,” is a constant in his classes, he can almost always point to particular students who carry a “regional stamp [with them] and find the way to embody it in writing by being here at Middlebury, immersed in a place that is a little bit off to the side; with a perspective, but still of it.”

“With a perspective, but still of it.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

By some accounts, Hugh Marlow ’57 has appeared at more than 70 Middlebury alumni events around the country each year. Extrapolated over nearly 30 years, it means that Hugh has attended more than 2,100 gatherings, where he no doubt greeted each and every alum with a handshake, a wide smile, and a story or two. Let’s say the average gathering included 100 people. That would mean Hugh has shaken 210,000 hands and told (at least) 210,000 stories.

That sounds conservative to us.

I’d be willing to venture that the figure is twice that, though, really, numbers alone do not capture Hugh Marlow’s value to—and impact on—Middlebury College. Not even close.

During a tenure in alumni relations that spans three decades, Hugh has been the College’s roving ambassador, its on-campus greeter, its cheerleader, and, yes, its official critic. You see, no one loves the College and its people the way Hugh does— unconditionally, but not uncritically; completely, but not without a measure of candor that has earned him the affectionate moniker of Middlebury Unplugged. He tells it like it is, always with the College’s best interests at heart, and always with a soft spot for those who have been fortunate enough to attend the College on a Hill.

When I first moved to Vermont nearly seven years ago, Hugh was one of the first people I met. He welcomed me to Middlebury—it was as warm and as genuine a welcome as I’ve ever received—before adding with a wink and quick grin, “Even someone from Virginia can grow to love this place.” I laughed—and was more than a little bit surprised that he had bothered to learn who I was and where I was coming from; but I shouldn’t have been. That was just Hugh being Hugh.

Since then, Hugh and his lovely wife, Barbara, have become good friends to my wife, Katie, our little boy, John, and me. When we bought a house just up the street from the Marlows, Hugh and Barbara were the first to arrive on our doorstep with a bottle of champagne and a note that read “Welcome to the south end of South Street. We’re so glad you’re at Middlebury”; it still hangs on our refrigerator to this day. We’ve enjoyed meals at their house, and they at ours, where Hugh has taken a shine to the Southern-style eggnog I make each December. A few years ago, Barbara bought Hugh a bright yellow scooter for Christmas (he’s pictured riding it, at left), and she stashed it in our garage so it’d be a surprise on Christmas morning. And then just the other day, Hugh and Barbara stopped by—he wanted to drop off a copy of a letter Gordie Perine ’49 had written to him after he had accepted the job of director of alumni relations in 1980. The “copy” was the actual letter, typewritten on thin, onionskin paper. Terrified of damaging it, I treated it like it was the Constitution, made a copy the next day, and promptly returned it him. In the letter, Gordie wrote, “There is no doubt in my mind that you will do a tremendous job for Middlebury and the Alumni Office and that you will make many, many friends along the way.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

The three-year-old in the Jennings household has a bedtime ritual. After taking a bath and reading books with Mommy or Daddy, he settles into a large, comfortable chair in his room with one of his parents for story time. The lights go down, and the young boy gets to request two to three stories (depending on “how tired” Mommy or Daddy’s voice is). He has a handful in his archive, but since last spring, there has been a pattern, depending on the season. It started one night in early May.

“Will you please tell me a story about lacrosse?”

I quickly learned that he wanted a specific story, as in—he wanted a retelling of his attendance at that day’s game. It goes something like this (I’ll give you the extremely abridged version): Once upon a time, John, Daddy, and Mommy went to a lacrosse game. When they got to the stadium, John and Daddy went down on the field with their lacrosse sticks, and while Mommy cheered from the stands, John scored a goal (!) and the assistant coach on the field gave him a high five (!). Then the goalies came on the field, and John ran over and gave them high fives (!) and they all said, “Hey John!” Then John and Daddy went back up in the stands to have a snack, but then John heard bagpipes (!). “The team is coming!” John said.

(At this point, the three-year-old usually interrupts the story to make sure that the storyteller knows that the team doesn’t step onto the field until the drums start.)

And on it goes. Since the birth of the lacrosse story, stories about basketball and football and baseball and soccer have all been added to the rotation, as have stories about the radio station and the picnic and the trip to the “humongous” science building.

What is critical to each story—aside from John’s participation in each, of course—is the presence of Middlebury students in the narrative. They are everywhere, often willing (I think) and enthusiastic participants. There’s Basketball Ben, Basketball Aaron, and Basketball Matt; Ruby and Adrienne; Bisi; Jamie from the pool. They give him swimming lessons. They come over to his house and shoot baskets and then take him for ice cream. They volunteer at his preschool. They teach him how to say hello in Japanese. They offer those spirited high fives at games. They even teach him about tarantulas.

The thing is, as much as John’s mother and I think that our son is the greatest, the most irresistible, wise beyond his years, etc., we also recognize that Middlebury students are devoted to hundreds of Johns and Elizabeths and Lukes in Addison County; our kid benefits from this generosity, but he’s far from alone.

We hear so much about the exploits of Middlebury students—eye-popping success in the classroom, unwavering dedication in the laboratory and on the stage and athletic fields, and stunning achievements in realms previously undiscovered. (We also hear them tromping up and down some of our residential streets at 2 A.M. on the weekends, but in light of all that I’m writing about here, I’m more than willing to let that slide.) In a small town, though, where a community and an institution are intertwined, it’s the oft unpublicized acts—perhaps small and fleeting to the student, yet magnificent and life-changing to the child (and his parents)—that have the greatest impact of all.