The Dinner Companion

A recent Sunday Denver Post featured an article on the rigors of college application: the tests, the forms, the writing of "personal statement" essays ("Why I Want to go to College"), and the hypothetical questions, among them If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be, and why?

The question caught my eye. Certainly it is not an original one, probably ranking up there with "What would you do if you won the lottery?" --a variation on the fantasy wish-list. My of f the top list was Einstein, DaVinci, or Mozart--still not very original. But why would I want to dine with them? (It is presumed that there would be no language barriers, and that they would be totally forthcoming.) Would I do this for an interesting evening? For amusement? To provide anecdotes for future dinner parties? I say it would be for the opportunity to learn. And that presupposes it would be about a subject I already knew something about, and had pondered deeply. And since I am a pragmatist, my dinner companion must be a person who could provide me with facts

Each of us, if we live long enough, will come to regret unasked questions. of those already gone. I recall the last time I saw Allen Hynek, a month before his death. Alas, the unasked questions. I had many, but he was so ill, I felt I could not tax him, could .not pry into secrets he still felt obligated to cling to. Yes, I would dine with Allen Hynek, and it would be like old times, and he would tell me what he really knew about UFOs.

But Allen Hynek would not have all the answers I covet. Oh yes, at this fantasy dinner I would learn things that he had told no other (even those who profess they know it all). But Allen did not know it all. So I must turn away if I want the whole story, from Allen to someone who knows, really knows, what happened, that hot southwest July of 1947.

So I choose to dine with Harry Truman.