Teller got home from work about 5:00 on Friday. He put down his stuff by the front door, sighed heavily, plopped onto a chair in the bedroom…

…and immediately starting weeping.

His body was achy all over and he was bone-tired. Although it had been a mostly-manageable week, given that it was spring break and campus was very quiet, fatigue and depression seemed to permeate every cell of his being.

Teller had taken two vacation days during the week, though, and for a little while there, he felt almost human. On Wednesday, he spent some time in the morning at his favorite Starbucks reading a dissertation proposal in preparation for an upcoming conference-call committee meeting. While immersed in this academic pursuit, he felt as relaxed as he had for a long time, perhaps several months. Alas, the feeling disappeared when he packed up and moved on to other activities. Even when he went to a movie during that same afternoon, he realized his free-floating anxiety was back and that he was not breathing well, his gut all tightened-up.

On Thursday, his anxiety took a break again for a couple of hours while engaged in a FaceTime conversation with one of his favorite people in the world: the Ph.D. student from Portlandia whose committee meeting was imminent. But, then, it was back to the feeling of off-centeredness, tense body, and problematic bladder.

Friday morning, Teller went back to work, wondering how can this possibly be my life?

Teller was married once, in his twenties, for ten years. Since then, he has had two other, more-significant couplings; he counts both Leigh and Katrina among his “great loves.” While other, shorter-term relationships have come and gone, the losses of these three have affected Teller the most profoundly.

Teller genuinely likes women. Even when they aren’t his lovers, members of the female gender comprise most of the individuals he counts as friends. Women of all kinds, shapes, sizes, interests and orientations seem to be attracted to Teller for one reason or another. He suspects that women can get from him what they find generally lacking in other males: the ability to really listen, understand and be present. Despite this, though, one of his women friends, at one point in his life, informed Teller that it was her opinion it was these very qualities that eventually kept women away. “Women always say that they want their significant other to express feelings and really be present, but when it comes the time that they actually find somebody like that, they don’t know how to handle it. Teller, you can be so present it’s scary. Yes, I think that’s why you’re alone,” she said. “You don’t fit into any model of any man they’ve known before.”

So, here Teller is, now in his sixties, still trying to understand his life. He’s trying to figure women out, and find an explanation for why he’s neither in a relationship nor been able to sustain one.

Right now he’s thinking about Mona. Mona lives in another part of the state, but was visiting Teller Territory a couple of years ago, around Thanksgiving (November 2008), to celebrate the holiday with her parents. Teller and Mona happened to find themselves at neighboring tables in a local Starbucks one afternoon, and they struck up a conversation. Mona initiated with a comment about Teller’s laptop computer, but it ended up to be an intense, three-hour dialog about various, intimate aspects of each of their lives. They ultimately exchanged contact information but, then, Mona drove home the next day. While Teller did follow up with an email, there was no response from her, other than a belated reply to remind Teller that she was very busy, living with someone else, and was a long way away (with no chance of ever living in Teller Territory).

However, Teller has had, just recently, further contact with Mona. She is no longer in relationship, and was again visiting her parents in Teller Territory last week. She was the one who initiated contact, and they ended up spending about 12 hours together (in person and on the phone), over the course of two days, engaged in deep conversation about their lives.

Now, she’s gone again: off to lead her solitary life. In Mona Territory.

This weekend, as the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, are filled with protestors, signs and boisterous chanting (aimed at a lunatic Governor who took office less than two months ago), Teller is reminded of another time of civil unrest there: the Vietnam War era. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the 1960s, was affectionately called “The Berkeley of the Midwest,” due to its reputation as a center for anti-war activism. Teller lived in northern Wisconsin at the time, attended college at one of the state’s regional four-year institutions, and participated in the milder and more-modest protests on his home campus.

In a weird sort of way, Teller remembers the Sixties as the worst of times and the best of times. It was the worst because there was the constant threat of the draft -- and the probability of severe injury or death while fighting in an illegal and unjust war. It was the best because there was never a dull moment. The country was hyper-alive, on the edge of revolution, and campuses were where the action was.

No, there really wasn’t anything quite like being a college student in the Sixties.

From 1965 to 1969, Teller was a full-time undergraduate, maintaining his 2-S draft-deferment status and, hence, his ability to keep himself out of uniform and harm’s way. However, that wouldn’t last forever. In late May of 1969, Teller had just finished his fourth year of studies, twelve semester-credits short of graduating.  By that time, the drum beating of the Selective Service System had been pounding in his ears for months: all anyone got before they had to relinquish their 2-S status was four years of college attendance, no matter the outcome.

Early in1969, Teller had been summoned for his draft physical, traveling to Minneapolis to undergo the experience of being marched, with hundreds of others, cattle-like, through the examination process. Despite the medical file that Teller had generated, and continually updated, at his local draft board, he passed his physical. Before the semester ended, he had received his 1-A classification card. And three weeks to the day after his last final exam, June 18, 1969, his draft notice appeared in his mailbox.

“Greetings,” it said.

Isn’t it interesting what memories can be brought back, right here in 2011, by these stirring images from Madison on the TV news?