J. Glen Howard
Published: 2009-11-25
Total Pages: 230
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THE REINCARNATION OF ETHAN HAYES In the summer of 1958, a tourist who stopped with his family at a picnic area on property owned by Winthrop College in Skolfi eld, Maine, discovered a human skull. The investigation that followed revealed the identity of two of the three students who were responsible, in one way or another, for its being there. Following a convoluted string of events that included a fraternity prank that involved the exhumation of a body, the college physician and the Chief of the Skolfi eld Police Department questioned the two young men. The year before, Robin O’Brien came to Winthrop from Baker College in Weyland, Massachusetts as the spring fraternity house party weekend date of Randall “Sparky” Barbour, the self-appointed director of all things musical at the Kappa Nu House. When their blind date did not work out, she turned to Ned Cooper. The two of them seemed to have little in common; Ned was a working student of modest means from Skolfi eld, Maine, while Robin came from a comfortably affl uent family in Saugus, Massachusetts. Regardless of their differences, they fell in love and were pinned before Robin returned to Weyland at the end of the weekend. That summer, Robin landed a job as a playground supervisor with the Skolfi eld Recreation Department and Ned returned to his longtime job with the Winthrop College Department of Grounds & Buildings. After a wonderful holiday, they returned to their own colleges with renewed vigor, and their improved grades showed it. At that point, they both thought they would be together for the rest of their lives. Neither of them was prepared for the furor that followed the discovery of the skull in the college pines the following summer. They were both guilty of involvement in what seemed like an innocuous escapade at the time, but they thought they had gotten away with it and they had put it out of their minds. When they were forced to face the reality of expulsion, imprisonment, or both, their reactions were diametrically opposed to one another, threatening to destroy them individually as well as ending their relationship.