Freshman Year at Harvard, 1961

It's time for my 50th high school reunion, so I'm doing a bit of reminiscing about the "old days." High School, the old neighborhood, Boy Scouts, grammar school, there are so many items to tickle my memory, and check my approaching Altzheimens that it's too tempting not to write. Freshman year at Harvard is a good one. Everyone has heard of Harvard, and I will probably get some "hits" over that subject. After all, the Wall Street Journal just had a recent article on Ivy styles.

My freshman year there was a long time ago, 1961. I had done all the things necessary to get in to Harvard: mucho activities in high school, reasonable grades placing me high up in my graduation class, and pretty good record on my high school basketball team. Well rounded and ambitious. That's what they looked at in those days, and I was certainly that.

From my perspective however, I did just about everything, but I didn't "go nuts" about anything. I wasn't the best trumpet player in Illinois, or the all "800" on the college boards, but I was just "well rounded." (I've gotten much more "well rounded" as the years have gone by.) I think I have stayed just about the same these days, 45 years after Harvard I still have many interests.

I clearly remember my freshman dorm, Stoughton Hall. First floor, south entrance, and the talented men who roomed there. We had our first beer party there. I had never had any significant alcohol until then, and it was fun. The rule in those days was if campus police found you and you were "tipsy" they would take you back to your dorm. It was a good system. I was smart that night. I never left my dorm.

I remember going to my freshman writing class, and being surprised that Harvard needed such a class, but after trying to fulfill the requirements, I learned that it wasn't such a bad idea. I couldn't write worth a damn. (It's not much different now.) That's where I first read the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story The Birth Mark. I still love that story, and recently asked my wife to read it.

Two things stand out from this first year at Harvard: my socks, and basketball. Strange, isn't it? Socks because I went to Cambridge from South Shore high school on the south side of Chicago. White socks were fine at South Shore. But there were a lot of "preppies" in Cambridge, and I quickly learned that black socks were the thing. The Coop solved that problem, and I quickly got into stride.

Basketball was another thing, and I still regret my decisions. When I applied, I had to list 10 activities that I did in high school. I had to list them in the order of importance to me. I had placed basketball first, and I even worried about doing that because I thought listing basketball first would not look intellectual enough. It obviously didn't matter. I got in.

I did try out for the team, and made a couple of "cuts" but the class work was difficult, and I dropped out of the try outs. Big mistake, and I will always regret the fact that I had no one to discuss this with at the time. I should have continued to play. My best academic year turned out to be my junior year when I went out for crew, and rowed the whole year. If I had made the team it probably would have been OK from an academic perspective. As a pre-med,however,  I knew I needed to keep my nose to the grind stone, and I did.

The special thing about going to Harvard in 1961, was that John Kennedy was the President of the United States. He had gone there, and we all knew it. His image added a sense of dignity and class to the place, and it seemed to rub off even on a kid from South Chicago. Wasn't Kennedy special.

I can still remember going to the Mallinckrodt  building  for chemistry class in November 1963 and finding a whole group of students listing to a car radio near Memorial Hall. I asked, "what is going on?"

"The Presidents been shot."

I didn't think anyone would want to shoot Nathan Pusey. I had a narrow frame of reference in those days, but was quickly straightened out. What a sad time.

When I went back for my 40th reunion, I realized something that I wish I had known while I was there. What I figured out was that in retrospect, the first year a Harvard seemed a long as the last three.  Meeting all those incredible youngsters, facing the academic challenges, and living in such an historic tradition was a stressful joy. I have continued to carry some of that joy with me through the years.