The Enduring Dream

While attending his father's graveside service in 1997 Dan remembers his freshman year in college back in 1966-1967.
It was his nineteenth year and an eventful one for Dan as well as for the country as it was entering a tumultuous time. Set in the back drop of college life in transition where the traditional norms of the 1950's and early '60's are rapidly being altered and Dan witnesses the beginnings of the anti Vietnam War mobilization movement and participates in the historic April 15, 1967 rally in New York.
In the spring of 1967 he finally loses his virginity to Emily, a sensuous and seductive girl with whom he had attended high school that he would eventually marry.
After an uneventful first semester focused on his courses, he joins the budding anti-war movement and forms an undying friendship with Jennifer, a fiery idealistic redhead who forever alters Dan's outlook on life and society and for whom the Sandpipers' version of Guantanamero will always inspire them both as it becomes their special song.
He gets reacquainted with Stan, the son of an up and coming politician from Dan's hometown who not only introduces him to the anti-war group but also to a hedonistic fraternity where he decides to pledge at Stan's urging and then becomes distracted from his studies by their parties because there was always beer and weed available.
Dan also witnesses the evolution of his roommate Jamie who changes from a button-down type business major to an enthusiastic supporter of the anti-war movement when he realizes what the cost of the war would be to him and sadly in the future sees Jamie pay the ultimate price in the war he had grown to oppose.
Finally he is reminded quite abruptly of the important place his Dad still holds in his life when he gets high and at the urging of Stan commits a foolish act and gets temporarily suspended from college as a result though covering for Stan who was not discovered. When his Dad finds out about what happened he confronts Dan who admits he was using weed when it happened and not only does Dan receive a stern lecture but also is unexpectedly put across his Dad's knees for a sound bare bottom spanking but when Dan learns that with the spanking came forgiveness he accepts what happened. His Dad is also able to extricate Dan from his trouble at college while making sure he gets back onto the right track with his studies even while telling him to pursue his beliefs about the war.
In the end he ultimately realizes the strong platonic but loving bond that exists between him and Jennifer as she makes a surprising final request for him to safeguard her legacy and then after his Dad's death he discovers something his Dad had hidden from him that made him appreciate how special his Dad had really been.