Walnut as Symbol

Circa early winter 1984, and I'm a freshman in college, during the first week of Concert Choir tour somewhere in Florida. During a break in rehearsal at one of the churches, an intimidating senior -- whose name is lost in the vaults of my ever-drowsy brain -- walks up to me, grinning, and extends his clenched fist towards me. Obedient, dumb, I reach out and open my palm to receive the unshelled walnut he plops into it. He pronounces, to the general crowd, "I'd give my left nut to be like this guy." General merriment ensues. I find his pronouncement to be rather ambiguous, and I certainly have no idea in what sense he wanted to be 'like me', but I'm left with a general feeling of well-being and camaraderie, which I had certainly never felt in high school.