It was 1998 and I was a college senior at BC. Guster was performing, and opening for them was a relatively new band called The Getaway People. Both bands put on a great show, and when it was all over, some of our roommates who were working the show asked the bands if they’d like to come back to our house for an afterparty. They accepted the invitation, and the night fell into legend after that.
I could tell you a lot of great stories from that night. The guys from both bands were awesome to hang out with, and there was a lot of comedy as hundreds of kids—it felt like a thousand—started surrounding our house, not wanting to miss out on the festivities. It was wild. It was the kind of night where too much happens to fully remember, whether you are drinking or not. But of all the things that happened that night, right now I just want to tell you about my time with The Getaway People.
Find the Norwegian Kid
People were everywhere. In one of my buddy’s rooms, Guster was hunkered down with some of my friends, sharing stories, and I had no idea where The Getaway People were. I had just left the Guster room and was outside on the lawn, sharing some laughs with a few friends, when voices started coming from our housing unit, Mod 29A.
“Larson!” someone shouted. Then more calls for my name. “Hey, has anyone seen Larson?” A chorus of “Where’s Larson?” began. Before I knew it, it sounded like twenty or thirty people were asking for me.
“What’s up?” I asked a small group of people, congregating around the sliding glass door.
“The Getaway People want to see you.”
Huh? Me? What do they want me for? Wracking my brain for what I possibly could have done to turn an entire band’s attention on me, I asked them why.
“I don’t know,” one kid said, “they are in your room asking for you.” My room?
To the Eagle’s Nest
Curious to say the least, I headed inside. My bedroom was at the top of the stairs, and looking up, I saw the whole band hanging about my bedroom door. When I reached them, I said, “Were you guys looking for me?”
“Are you Larson?” one of them asked, to which I nodded and replied, “I am.” Cheers and pats on the back erupted all around, as the band started embracing me and shaking my hand. It turns out that these guys, who hailed from Stavanger, Norway, were just going around, checking out our pad, when they spotted the Norwegian flag hanging in my bedroom. Suddenly all they cared about was finding the Norwegian kid at BC. The way some of my friends told it, people kept trying to ask them stuff and they were just like, “Cool. Where’s Larson?”
Sharing Roots
I wish I could tell you which ones I hung out with the most, or who was who, but it didn’t matter. I saw them as a kindly group of representatives from the homeland, and I think they saw me as a way to not feel so far away from home—even though I couldn’t speak Norwegian. They asked me all sorts of questions about where my family came from in Norway, to which I told them about my great-grandfather Lars Larson jumping ship in New York Harbor when he was fourteen or fifteen years old.
Lars had come from Trondheim and joined the British Merchant Marine in search of a better life. After sailing to Africa, including some rumored time around the Congo, he wanted to escape and start a new life in America. Given how good life is for Norwegians these days, I always wonder how bad life must have been for him to have fled the country and go live on a ship at such a young age.
The Getaway People were great, and we had a lot of laughs. They challenged me to a shotgun beer race outside, and everyone stepped aside while Matt and the band competed. It was hilarious. After it was over, we spent a while hanging out on the lawn just talking. Girls kept coming up to the band, asking them questions, and the band kept responding with lines like, “Cool, do you know Larson?” No matter what conversation they were having, they made sure to redirect the attention to me. My brothers from across the pond were treating me like the real celebrity of the night. It was a trip.
Mod 29A, on a much quieter winter afternoon during break.
Linked Thoughts
I hadn’t thought about this night in years. Funny how some moments that seemed so big at the time fall under an avalanche of more meaningful ones as the years pass by. But yesterday I was listening to the news about current immigration policies, and it had me reflecting on my own roots. About my grandmother who left her hovel in Ireland, as a young girl, to work as a maid in New York. About Lars who had so little money that he had to keep moving his family from apartment to apartment, when he couldn’t afford to pay any rent. And I thought about The Getaway People, touring to promote their first album, finding a connection to their homeland in a tiny dorm room all the way across the pond at a random college in Massachusetts.
The news got me thinking about what this country is. A place where all people are welcome. Where a band can fly halfway across the globe and manage to find someone with their heritage or roots. Where for every country—all 195 of them—there is a member from their homeland living in the United States, ready to connect and smile with. Perhaps share a laugh about lutefisk and long summer days with. And they can do this regardless of religion, color, or creed.
A Lucky Chance
Now as a white guy with Irish and Norwegian roots, I get there is nothing in the USA threatening me. There was a time when the Irish were spat upon and looked down on as second-class citizens in America, and I’ve certainly been judged as a “stupid Catholic” from time to time because of my background, without even saying a word, but I have no inkling of what racial discrimination so many people may be experiencing today as they look for hope in this country. But as we see people being denied access to religious services, while in detention by ICE, I think everyone should at least be able to see how indecent that treatment is.
I can’t help but think what would have happened if Lars—a kid without any papers that I know of—was locked up in a detention center when he arrived on the shores of NYC. Would he have made it? Would I be here? I get that we want to make sure people are coming in properly, but I think too many of us forget that our stories originated under the very same circumstances as so many immigrants today. That we are a nation of immigrants, many of whom were illegal.
Look, I’m not saying illegal immigration is okay. I don’t know enough about it to give any definitive opinion on how to improve the process, and I think I would need a trip to the border in order to do that. But regardless of process, the thing that seems to be happening with the current immigration policy is the persecution of hope. A desire to quell the same spirit that so many have come to this country with. To stamp out the very hope that makes this place different.
A Reemerging Voice
I was recently heartened by a social media message that came from a group of American bishops. They denounced the prohibition of religious services to detained people, and it was great to see some religious leaders of any kind coming out and using a modern platform to get their message out. The new pope seems to be a great communicator as well, and I hope they all continue to share the positive messages of inclusivity that they are currently promoting. It’s so important. Because regardless of what you think about immigration, it shouldn’t be a debate that people should be treated humanely. Especially in this country.
A lot has been said over the years by politicians about the “beacon of hope” that is our country. This “shining light.” Maybe a lot of that was lip service, but when you peel away the political rhetoric, that is what the USA is for the entire world. A place where anyone is free to live as they choose, say what they believe, and do so without fear of persecution. It also should not go without saying that the spirit of the immigrant is full of hope, and it’s precisely that hope that buoys the sentiment of a nation. It is an economic driver, creating new business and new benefits for the community—it literally lifts a country up.
The Only Contant is Change
Yes, when different people come to the country, things may start to look different. But change is inevitable, whether you like it or not. And this country is the greatest opportunity we have to connect the whole world and establish world peace. Because if we look like the rest of the world, then who can really hate us, despite what they say for political points? And kindness towards immigrants isn’t a policy limited to Democratic or Republican principles. As Ronald Reagan once said, “Our nation is a nation of immigrants. Our strength comes from our immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome others.” Barack Obama said, “We’re a nation of immigrants. It’s a source of our strength.” And George W. Bush said that “immigrants can help build a dynamic tomorrow.”
But when I see people being thrown in detention centers and not being allowed to even worship, it’s clear we could be doing much better. That the government could be treating people more humanely. Giving them hope while giving them due process. That the people already here should understand that the people coming in are who they once were, even if it wasn’t their generation that had to take the journey. Even if they are beneficiaries of something they didn’t have to earn themselves. That everyone deserves a little hope, and that this country is the place, of all places, where one should be able to come halfway across the world and find a flag of their homeland hanging on some kid’s wall.
“We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.” —John Quincy Adams (As portrayed in Amistad)