Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

All-American Cheerleader Sandi Sentell Stands in Line Outside Alumni Gym Before a Lecture by Gloria Steinem

All-American Cheerleader Sandi Sentell Stands in Line Outside Alumni Gym Before a Lecture by Gloria Steinem

The ticket wasn’t hard to get. Steinem was still a name, still famous enough to fill a room, just not
        the best room

on campus. We were gathered along the sidewalk, waiting to file into Alumni Gym, hardly used
        anymore except by the kayak club

rolling their boats in the basement pool, the brick facade of the place done up in a land grant
        version of institutional gothic

like all the other old buildings on The Hill, the symbol of the university. From where I stood in line
        a half-dozen people behind her,

Sandi Sentell was the celebrity. An aura still hung about her that on Saturday afternoons in
        Neyland Stadium had illuminated us all.

Back in the early days of autumn I’d somehow gotten first row tickets for the UCLA game.
        Terrible seats, really,

corner of the end zone in the student section, too low, no angle on the field, but every time
        the network television camera

swung to take in Sandi Sentell hoisted joyously aloft, I was in the shot for family and friends
        to see. And here she stood on a late spring evening,

 

waiting in line like the rest of us. Fame is as fleeting as anything else—the simplest solvent will
        break it down

and send it seeping into the ground water. If you’re given a daubing of celebrity it’s honorable
         to do some good with it,

to help the massed ticket-holders clarify and concentrate their passions towards some
        constructive end. When the line finally moved,

she looked over her shoulder toward Cumberland Avenue where the late commuters were
        formed into a line of their own, one to a car,

unaware of us or who was slated to speak, the hooded disks of light in the traffic signals grown
        more insistent against the gloaming,

and then a moment’s pause at each change to green before the straining of the cars joined into
        one plainting hymn.

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