![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/epps.jpg\")
<\/td>\nSadly, Harvard yesterday announced the death following
\n surgery of longtime Dean Archie Epps. I met Dean Epps for
\n the first time in 1971, when he was the young (mid-30’s), hip (well,
\n he was Black, which in those days was sorta the same thing) newly appointed
\n Dean of Students, which meant he handled undergraduate disciplinary problems,
\n and I was an 18-year-old freshman, which meant I got to know him pretty
\n well over the following four years.<\/p>\n
But that first encounter was over the Andy Ben B. affair,
\n after which Archie was forever know among our small and <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
admittedly obscure clique as "the whitest
\n man on campus."<\/p>\n
Andy Ben B. was my freshman roommate, and the smartest guy I had ever
\n known. His IQ was off the scale; it had been measured at 186 but
\n that was an underestimation. He also came from an obscenely rich leather-tanning
\n family in New Jersey and showed up in September with a brand new Porsche,
\n which he didn’t mind lending to his roomie. What did I know, I figured
\n this was a typical Harvard setup.<\/p>\n
We spent the next few months exploring Cambridge and the insides of
\n each others minds, fueled by the youthful exuberance and endemic
\n recreational substances of the era. I was looking forward to Andy’s intellectual
\n camaraderie and support for at least the duration of our collegiate careers,
\n but alas, it was not to be.<\/p>\n
Andy Ben B. came back from Thanksgiving break with some mescaline which
\n was too good to be true. In fact, it was so good that when Andy
\n took it, he never came down. Over the course of the next
\n week, to paraphrase Allen Ginsberg, I watched one of the finest minds
\n of my generation burst in a super-nova and then slowly disintegrate into
\n a babbling pool of incoherence. It was an awesome and terrible
\n experience.<\/p>\n
The first three days were pure enlightenment. Andy was preternaturally
\n brilliant, astounding the rest of us smartasses with amazing insights
\n into topics as far afield as psychophysiology, economics and particle
\n physics. He started discussions that continued in the Chem department
\n and the
\n School of Theology. Of course, he was completely off his nut, not sleeping
\n or eating or attending any classes. We, his circle of friends,
\n were babysitting him round the clock, in tandem teams, marveling at his
\n genius, deathly afraid for his sanity and physical well-being.<\/p>\n
On the fourth day Andy announced that he was retiring from Harvard,
\n from the modern world actually, and would spend six years traveling
\n and
\n studying the six great cultures of the human race. During the seventh
\n year, he would rest, and reflect, and write a book. In the meantime
\n he had produced a 30 page statement pointing to the solutions
\n of the problems of our times whose brilliance we could only surmise as
\n he would let no one read it, and which he proposed to hand deliver to
\n the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major media outlets.<\/p>\n
Counting in our group several members halfway through freshman psych,
\n including myself, we immediately saw signs of megalomania and a nasty
\n messianic
\n complex. But we had no idea what to do about it. We had reached the chapter
\n on diagnosis, but wouldn’t get to treatment until spring.<\/p>\n
In retrospect what we should have done is to feed Andy a massive
\n dose of tranks, knock him out for a few days and get his mind and body
\n out of that accelerating upward death-spiral that lack of sleep and underlying
\n psychosis can produce.<\/p>\n
But what did we know, back then? Besides, we were too scared to
\n feed him any more drugs and were beginning to have awful, dark premonitions
\n as to how all this would turn out.<\/p>\n
Andy’s ravings had turned darker. All
\n sorts of family shit was starting to come out, a lot of it centered around
\n his mother, who apparently, at least in this rendition of things, was
\n quite a piece of work.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, we were becoming exhausted and increasingly freaked out by
\n the still brilliant but now dark and twisted meanderings of Andy’s unraveling
\n mind. It was increasingly obvious that old Andy would
\n need some sort of institutional setting to deal with this, and soon.<\/p>\n
So it was with a desperate mixture of relief and foreboding that I took
\n the call one early December morning from Dean Archie Epps (been wondering
\n if I would ever get back to him?) asking if Andy Ben B. could stop by
\n for a chat. At 10, say? As I hung up the phone I knew that, for
\n better or worse, the gig was up.<\/p>\n
I had a 9 o’clock class, I remember, one that I had missed several times
\n during the preceding week watching over Andy, so I obtained his repeated
\n and solemn assurances that he understood when and where he was to report. He
\n seemed reasonably coherent and content, and I dared to hope the worst
\n was over.<\/p>\n
As well as we can piece it together, before heading over to University
\n Hall for his visit with Dean Epps, Andy squirreled out a deeply hidden
\n stash of cocaine that some other insane undergraduate had laboriously
\n and ingeniously wormed into the woodwork of the ancient fireplace mantle,
\n and about which I knew nothing, I maintain to this day. Andy proceeded
\n to snort the entire stash and march right in to see Archie like a drunk
\n deb with an over-powdered schnozz.<\/p>\n
What went on in Dean Epps office that morning no one really knows except
\n Andy and Archie, and now Archie is gone. About halfway through the meeting
\n Dean Epps opened his office door, fearing for his life no doubt. Second
\n hand reports from secretaries and other students who happened to be in
\n the office include accounts of Andy dancing on the dean’s desk, patiently
\n explaining the chemical composition of dozens of psychotropicals, snatching
\n Archie’s pipe from his mouth and using it to do an uncanny, spot on imitation
\n of the dean himself, with every mannerism and inflection perfect, singing
\n perfectly rhymed and syncopated quatrains on the virtues of German automobiles,
\n Chilean women and organic psychedelics.<\/p>\n
Two of our gang showed up near the end of the climatic performance and
\n it is they who reported, to our everlasting appreciation, that when he
\n walked out of his office Dean Archie Epps was the whitest man on campus.<\/p>\n
Andy was taken directly to the Stillman infirmary where he was finally
\n tranquillized, but the damage had been done. He was institutionalized
\n for an extended period, eventually recovered but never returned to Harvard.<\/p>\n
In an additional bummer, Andy’s complete mental nakedness and lack of
\n any prudent monitoring unleashed a torrent of stories and insights on
\n illegal
\n intoxicants
\n on campus which must have seemed, to an outside observer, exaggerated
\n and impossible. Only
\n his obvious insanity and complete worthlessness as a witness saved us
\n all
\n from serial
\n indictments.<\/p>\n
Andy’s aforementioned Mom did try her best to get me kicked out of the
\n college. Probably
\n only the fact that I was able to prove the final fatal dose of mescaline
\n that pushed Andy over the edge had been obtained by him in New Jersey
\n over Thanksgiving saved
\n my ass. That and the fact that Dean Archie Epps was still a rookie
\n and somehow fell for my true but tawdry line of pathetic bullshit about
\n how we were all stunned, devastated and worried first and foremost for
\n Andy himself.<\/p>\n
So here’s to Dean of Students Archie Epps, who was an exceptional presence
\n on campus for over 30 years, and who defied categorization or classification
\n except in that it may be said, with honor and pride on both parts, that
\n he was a Harvard man.<\/p>\n
related Sadly, Harvard yesterday announced the death following surgery of longtime Dean Archie Epps. I met Dean Epps for the first time in 1971, when he was the young (mid-30’s), hip (well, he was Black, which in those days was sorta … Continue reading
\n story from
\n The Boston Globe<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"