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Ah, college.
Above is a really nice pic of my campus.
First, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss the summer of '67, which was when I graduated from high school.
You may recall that in the Summer of '63, I spent most of it with my Aunt, the retired WAVE from Auburn, Alabama. It was where she grew up and went to college, so she returned to Auburn with my cousin while my uncle, career Navy, was in VietNam as a "military advisor."
When they left Alabama after his deployment, they eventually moved to Northern California. He was a Commander, now assigned as instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. As a high school graduation gift, my parents gave me an airplane ticket to visit my favorite uncle and his family, now living in Carmel.
Above is a really nice pic of my campus.
First, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss the summer of '67, which was when I graduated from high school.
You may recall that in the Summer of '63, I spent most of it with my Aunt, the retired WAVE from Auburn, Alabama. It was where she grew up and went to college, so she returned to Auburn with my cousin while my uncle, career Navy, was in VietNam as a "military advisor."
When they left Alabama after his deployment, they eventually moved to Northern California. He was a Commander, now assigned as instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. As a high school graduation gift, my parents gave me an airplane ticket to visit my favorite uncle and his family, now living in Carmel.
I spent many hours at the beach in the photo. It wasn't the warm and sunny California I always saw in movies; in fact, the water was very cold and most days we had fog covering the area until around noon. But it was (is) beautiful.
So, I fell in love with California there and I went back again in the summer of 1968. I wasn't surprised that this is where I decided to move when my life blew up, and I needed to start over (but opted for SoCal, where the weather is MUCH better). As much as I love NYC, California was calling me (subconsciously) for most of my adult life.
Back to college.
I wanted to go away to school, primarily because I did NOT get along with my Dad. In addition, I had this propensity of getting into trouble with him (which I still had when he passed away at age 101...that was a LONG time to get into trouble with him!) and never being able to keep my mouth shut when I "disagreed" with him...or for that matter, anyone who pissed me off. I don't know if it was from growing up in Queens, where everyone I knew was loud and aggressive, or if it was just me. Since my friends who live in and around NYC, are still like that, so I'm hopeful that it IS everyone from there.
In the late 60s, many of my friends didn't go to college, no less go away. Instead, many of them took "commercial courses" in high school, which prepared them to be a secretary or office assistant or something like that. Then, they would go right out of the classroom into the workforce and actually earn money. Some went to nursing school, which was only three years then.
The boyfriend's cousin, a year older and one of my very best friends, went to a small women's Catholic college in the northwesternmost corner of the Bronx, on the Hudson River, one border of the campus being the Westchester county line: The College of Mt. St. Vincent (shortened to "CMSV" when spoken about and we were referred to as "Mounties"). It was all of about 40 minutes from Douglaston.
I'd gone with the boyfriend a couple of times when he gave her a ride back to school after a weekend home, and I thought it was a pretty neat place to be. The subway and buses to downtown Manhattan was just a few blocks from the main gate, and a commuter train ran along the Hudson by the campus and landed at Grand Central Station. It was "co-institutional" with Manhattan College (all men's Catholic), meaning CMSV students took classes there and vice versa.
The photo below is the famous "Quad" at Manhattan College, and I spent a lot of time hanging there, and sometimes when I was involved in anti-war protests.
Btw , my protests were never against the military. I was protesting about my friends being killed because they were drafted and sent to someplace when we had no reason to be there. I even knew of some people who went underground to Canada.
So, I fell in love with California there and I went back again in the summer of 1968. I wasn't surprised that this is where I decided to move when my life blew up, and I needed to start over (but opted for SoCal, where the weather is MUCH better). As much as I love NYC, California was calling me (subconsciously) for most of my adult life.
Back to college.
I wanted to go away to school, primarily because I did NOT get along with my Dad. In addition, I had this propensity of getting into trouble with him (which I still had when he passed away at age 101...that was a LONG time to get into trouble with him!) and never being able to keep my mouth shut when I "disagreed" with him...or for that matter, anyone who pissed me off. I don't know if it was from growing up in Queens, where everyone I knew was loud and aggressive, or if it was just me. Since my friends who live in and around NYC, are still like that, so I'm hopeful that it IS everyone from there.
In the late 60s, many of my friends didn't go to college, no less go away. Instead, many of them took "commercial courses" in high school, which prepared them to be a secretary or office assistant or something like that. Then, they would go right out of the classroom into the workforce and actually earn money. Some went to nursing school, which was only three years then.
The boyfriend's cousin, a year older and one of my very best friends, went to a small women's Catholic college in the northwesternmost corner of the Bronx, on the Hudson River, one border of the campus being the Westchester county line: The College of Mt. St. Vincent (shortened to "CMSV" when spoken about and we were referred to as "Mounties"). It was all of about 40 minutes from Douglaston.
I'd gone with the boyfriend a couple of times when he gave her a ride back to school after a weekend home, and I thought it was a pretty neat place to be. The subway and buses to downtown Manhattan was just a few blocks from the main gate, and a commuter train ran along the Hudson by the campus and landed at Grand Central Station. It was "co-institutional" with Manhattan College (all men's Catholic), meaning CMSV students took classes there and vice versa.
The photo below is the famous "Quad" at Manhattan College, and I spent a lot of time hanging there, and sometimes when I was involved in anti-war protests.
Btw , my protests were never against the military. I was protesting about my friends being killed because they were drafted and sent to someplace when we had no reason to be there. I even knew of some people who went underground to Canada.
I'd been accepted there and also at Queens College. I really wanted to go to Newton College, which later became part of Boston College, but my parents thought it was too far, so that got nixed early on. The tuition at Queens was negligible compared to room, board, and tuition at CMSV. My Dad told me he'd buy me a Cadillac if I stayed home and commuted to Queens. I knew a) I did NOT want to live at home and b) as a then 17-year-old, I most CERTAINLY did not want to be driving a Cadillac. It was the quintessential symbol of The Establishment, and I was already showing signs of hippie tendencies.
Of course, my being acceptance was a story in itself.
I had excellent grades in high school, so there was no difficulty in meeting their academic requirements, but it required a "personal interview." Unfortunately, it was an icy, cold day. When I walked out of the administration office (the large building in the photo), I slipped on the ice on the driveway and slid literally for several feet on my back, trying to hold down my skirt (I HAD to wear a skirt for the appointment.) I ended up almost entirely UNDER the car. The faculty member accompanying me could not quite find me, as she was in front of me and was already in the car when I hit the pavement. Even the boyfriend who was behind the wheel had no idea where I was until I pulled myself out from the chassis by hanging on to the door jam (luckily , the car door was still open) and suddenly stood up, brushing myself off.
Of course, my being acceptance was a story in itself.
I had excellent grades in high school, so there was no difficulty in meeting their academic requirements, but it required a "personal interview." Unfortunately, it was an icy, cold day. When I walked out of the administration office (the large building in the photo), I slipped on the ice on the driveway and slid literally for several feet on my back, trying to hold down my skirt (I HAD to wear a skirt for the appointment.) I ended up almost entirely UNDER the car. The faculty member accompanying me could not quite find me, as she was in front of me and was already in the car when I hit the pavement. Even the boyfriend who was behind the wheel had no idea where I was until I pulled myself out from the chassis by hanging on to the door jam (luckily , the car door was still open) and suddenly stood up, brushing myself off.
To this day, I'm never quite sure if my personal interview was given strong numbers because I was that good, or if the school was afraid I'd sue if I came up injured in a few days.
I got an authentic taste of freedom by living away from home when I went away to school, even though I came home every weekend because the boyfriend was living at his parents
(as did his two older siblings, who were going to college and also living home; and the other four siblings were younger.)
On the weekends when I was at home, I was, for the most part, left alone to my devices, and was not getting yelled at all the time...and then I went back on Sunday night .
I wouldn’t say I liked college. I thought I needed to get out into the world and make a difference. After all, why was I studying sociology (with the idea of being a social worker) when people needed help NOW, and I was wasting time studying? I’d tutored in Fort Apache, hung out in the projects in Spanish Harlem, and spent a summer in Alabama during the beginning of the civil rights movement. Being 18, I’d seen quite a bit of what was wrong with the world and was anxious to make it right. Of course, I was 18 and thought I knew all the answers. I wanted to quit school and join VISTA (“Volunteers in Service To America” … part of Americorps).
My parents said that was all well and good, but I’d be more helpful by getting a degree and doing something more productive than slopping around in the mud in Appalachia showing people how to diaper correctly (which I probably didn’t know how to do, anyway.)
My babysitting skills were negligible. I remember once doing an overnight weekend job taking care of three toddlers and had no idea what I was doing. They kept me up all night, wouldn’t eat, cried every other minute, and got into fistfights and hairpulling contests with each other. I also remember that when I left at the end of the weekend, I vowed never to have children.
I never studied. In fact, there is a picture of me in one yearbook looking like I was studying, looking like I was all into it, book in my hands. The photographer thought having me in the shot with the book upside down was hilarious. I actually had a decent enough GPA, just under 3.0. I got by because I took copious notes, had a semi-photographic memory, and had an excellent recall of what (little) I learned. As I said, I never studied. I did very well in any exams with essay format and was a pretty good guesser with multiple choices, and the fact that I didn’t need to take any math courses was a massive boost to my average.
(as did his two older siblings, who were going to college and also living home; and the other four siblings were younger.)
On the weekends when I was at home, I was, for the most part, left alone to my devices, and was not getting yelled at all the time...and then I went back on Sunday night .
I wouldn’t say I liked college. I thought I needed to get out into the world and make a difference. After all, why was I studying sociology (with the idea of being a social worker) when people needed help NOW, and I was wasting time studying? I’d tutored in Fort Apache, hung out in the projects in Spanish Harlem, and spent a summer in Alabama during the beginning of the civil rights movement. Being 18, I’d seen quite a bit of what was wrong with the world and was anxious to make it right. Of course, I was 18 and thought I knew all the answers. I wanted to quit school and join VISTA (“Volunteers in Service To America” … part of Americorps).
My parents said that was all well and good, but I’d be more helpful by getting a degree and doing something more productive than slopping around in the mud in Appalachia showing people how to diaper correctly (which I probably didn’t know how to do, anyway.)
My babysitting skills were negligible. I remember once doing an overnight weekend job taking care of three toddlers and had no idea what I was doing. They kept me up all night, wouldn’t eat, cried every other minute, and got into fistfights and hairpulling contests with each other. I also remember that when I left at the end of the weekend, I vowed never to have children.
I never studied. In fact, there is a picture of me in one yearbook looking like I was studying, looking like I was all into it, book in my hands. The photographer thought having me in the shot with the book upside down was hilarious. I actually had a decent enough GPA, just under 3.0. I got by because I took copious notes, had a semi-photographic memory, and had an excellent recall of what (little) I learned. As I said, I never studied. I did very well in any exams with essay format and was a pretty good guesser with multiple choices, and the fact that I didn’t need to take any math courses was a massive boost to my average.
I only ever cheated once in my life, and it was in a philosophy class, Metaphysics. Studying philosophy for me was likened to visiting the dentist, without numbing or novocaine for a root canal. Review the scene in Marathon Man.
I never understood anything that was talked about, and the fact that people said, “Philosophy will teach you to think,” didn’t help since my thinking was that philosophy was just garbage and had no relation to real life, like those people in Appalachia with the undiapered babies.
I needed to pass the final to bring my grade to a “D” which was all I could hope for. I knew a significant portion of the test was providing definitions (although, I remember thinking, if you were supposed to philosophize about philosophy, why would there be actual definitions?), so I wrote whatever definitions I could find in the text on a piece of paper and stuck it inside the bottom of my shoe. I thought that if I lifted my foot out of the shoe like I had a nervous twitch, it wouldn’t seem unusual, and I could look into the interior of my shoe where I hid the notes. The professor was a very old nun with very thick glasses, so my chances of her catching me were in my favor.
I did pass the course, with the hoped for D, and the fact that my oldest grandson graduated from a distinguished university in Chicago with a magna cum laude in philosophy seemed more than ironic. Years before when he told me what he had chosen for his major, I hinted I might cut him out of the will.
There was a lot of fun in college, mostly the results of some antics that were most definitely found to be against campus rules. Especially at a small, women's Catholic college.
I never understood anything that was talked about, and the fact that people said, “Philosophy will teach you to think,” didn’t help since my thinking was that philosophy was just garbage and had no relation to real life, like those people in Appalachia with the undiapered babies.
I needed to pass the final to bring my grade to a “D” which was all I could hope for. I knew a significant portion of the test was providing definitions (although, I remember thinking, if you were supposed to philosophize about philosophy, why would there be actual definitions?), so I wrote whatever definitions I could find in the text on a piece of paper and stuck it inside the bottom of my shoe. I thought that if I lifted my foot out of the shoe like I had a nervous twitch, it wouldn’t seem unusual, and I could look into the interior of my shoe where I hid the notes. The professor was a very old nun with very thick glasses, so my chances of her catching me were in my favor.
I did pass the course, with the hoped for D, and the fact that my oldest grandson graduated from a distinguished university in Chicago with a magna cum laude in philosophy seemed more than ironic. Years before when he told me what he had chosen for his major, I hinted I might cut him out of the will.
There was a lot of fun in college, mostly the results of some antics that were most definitely found to be against campus rules. Especially at a small, women's Catholic college.
There were so many of them I thought I'd give you a list, and remember that this is only a partial list. I actually considered making a new chapter here. If I were to document all of them, I'd also have to check the statute of limitations for "crimes" in New York.
- Crawling through the small door of the used tray conveyor of the cafeteria kitchen and stealing an entire sheet cake which we hid under a bed for days until it was done
- Repeating the above action several times for other things when we were hungry, and there were more many incidents of the removal of sheet cakes
- "Borrowing" a couple of the habits of the Sisters for a Halloween party (Many of our nuns, mostly the older ones, still wear the traditional garb.) One of them inquired (when she was in our ear shot speaking with another Sister) why her habit smelled like cigarette smoke .
- Removing a shopping cart from a local grocery store's parking lot and bringing it back to the dorm to use to deliver things to rooms, including friends too drunk to walk ...that incident prompted a call to invite us to a private conference with the dean and almost a suspension. However, that was an incident that the stuff of which legends are made.
- Smoking in our rooms (How lazy could we be to walk down the hallway to use "The Smoker," the room set aside just for that purpose?)
I was not into the drug scene at school for various reasons (and another list):
My sophomore year, the boyfriend and I got "pinned"... I doubt that people do that anymore and now that I think about it, there weren't many people who did that even then. It was supposed to be a sign that you are "engaged to be engaged." I guess a promise ring would be something like that.
I thought I'd marry him because I certainly did love him. But then, that spring, things started to change. He quit school and didn't tell me that (I learned that from his Mom, whom I adored. She was always the Mom that I wanted to be and looking back on my years of motherhood I never achieved anything of her greatness, but some of what I learned from her did turn up in my "momilies.") That became a huge rupture in our relationship. Then some other things happened that made me worry about where we were going.
My roommate that year signed up for a spring break trip to Bermuda (the same roommate who stole the shopping cart with me.) I still remember that it cost $99, including airfare and a room shared with other girls. It was, after all, 1969, and I recall regular gas was 25 cents a gallon. Without ever thinking my parents would ever allow me, they actually gave me the go-ahead to sign up.
(A little aside here...at some point in my life, I realized that my parents were always delighted to send me anywhere. I was always trouble...not so much to my Mom, but my Dad was always a problem. Well, I was the problem...and I was a problem to him until he moved in with me when he was 98...that was a lot of years for me to be a problem, especially since he lived to be 101. And then he finally liked me... I think. )
The story (or "stories" is more appropriate) from Spring Break will have to wait for me to write for you, as I have to pop in some frozen chicken pot pies for dinner. Thankfully, the hubs is very supporting of anything I do and is always happy with any food I put in front of him...and sometimes, truly, it doesn't even look like food.
THE CONTINUATION... Pot pies were baked and eaten, so the story picks up from here.
So off the roomie and I went off to sunny Bermuda. You didn't need a passport, and we were all piled into a charter plane from a no-name airline; there were kids from other colleges on the flight with us. I seem to remember that roomie knew a couple of people from her high school, but maybe I made that up.
I was too dumb to realize that this was probably not an air carrier with great safety records, but we didn't care. We were all about partying 24/7. We were taken by bus from the airport and found ourselves in a "Guest House" that was situated on the Belmont Hills Golf Course, in Warwick, somewhere between the 17th and 18th holes.
If you google the course now, you will see that it is a spectacular hotel, with pools, suites, a spa, etc. In 1969, I'm not sure what was there then since we were so far away from the main buildings we never saw them. Our accommodations were a rather run-down building with several suites in it, with dormitory style rooms. We were five girls bundled together in one bedroom on the second floor, with a small kitchen and one bathroom. Across the hall from us was another "suite" which was occupied by four boys, whom we soon found out were all on spring break from a Mortuary School in Massachusetts. That in itself was pretty funny, since these guys were real party animals; they were certainly not what one would see as a stereotypical undertaker. One of the funniest things I recall from our co-habitation with them is that they were always borrowing things from our suite: an extra dish, a pot, ice, etc. According to them, they had not nearly the equipment that we had. One morning we heard an early morning tap on the door, and there was one of the would-be embalmers who politely asked, "Do you have a toaster?" Of course, we did. His query was followed by "Do you have any bread?"
That same "Guest House" received an unwelcome visit from an errant golf ball that came crashing through the window, spraying glass on the floor, and narrowly missing one of us asleep in a bed. Since we had avoided loaning the broom from our rooms, the Boys From Boston, we were able to sweep up the mess, complaining to the manager who just shrugged, saying, "This happens quite often."
Since we were not on the "Modified American Plan" for food. I would guess that my parents must have given me money to eat, and I recall that there were a couple of Bermuda Tourism sponsored events like BBQ's and beach parties, but otherwise we had to find food. That was accomplished by our roommates, who were excellent at stuffing food under their jackets and sweatshirts and not paying for anything. I supposed I should have been guilty about that happening, but I was hungry and broke most of the week.
We'd all rented motor scooters, which was how we got around the small island, and now that I think about it now, we were all drinking all the time, so it's a miracle that none of crashed and killed ourselves or anyone else.
- Using the trays mentioned above as sleds down the snow-covered campus hills
- Using "sterilized" safety pins to perform our ear piercings
- Telling the nuns who were proctors for the dorms that the odor wafting through the hallways was incense being used to honor religious statues in our rooms (although it was pot and there was a scarcity of religious memorabilia found in our rooms)
- Giving false names to guys met at parties, the favorite list of which was Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy (the Little Women.) I had a liked using Melody Razminski, and how I came up with that moniker I have no idea.
- Using other students' names instead of our own, especially if we were attending anti-war rallies, since we knew the CIA kept tabs on some people. In fact, a couple of years after we graduated, we discovered that one of the guys we hung out with was in the CIA. I always thought he looked older, with a fuller beard than most. But so did everyone else I knew. Except for the girls. They didn't have beards. I mostly wore a headband with my down-to-the-waist hair, Pocahontas style.
- We loved creating scenes from movies. A Thousand Clowns, a popular movie at the time, had some of those. One of our favorites from that movie was to yell any time after 3 a.m. in the street of an upper-class neighborhood: "... Rich people, I want to see you all out on the street for volleyball! Let's snap it up!"
- Whenever we were bored, we'd borrow a car, drive to JFK, and pretend to be long-lost relatives. We'd take turns playing different roles, making enormous shows of beyond jubilation reunions, much to the delight (sometimes) of other passengers meeting people.
- I was known to stand up between subway stops to perform soft shoe recitals
I was not into the drug scene at school for various reasons (and another list):
- I did not try LSD since I was convinced that if I did, I would probably eventually give birth to a baby with two heads.
- I was always one who always got caught doing something wrong. What usually saved me was my "gift of gab" and talking myself out of incidents. I just knew I'd land up in a drug bust.
- Before there was a "DD," I was one. But not for alcohol; it was for talking down friends who were about to do something more than usually stupid while high.
- It was expensive to buy anything, and I never had much money. I preferred "Ladies Nights" at local pubs, where beer was only 10 cents a glass. And, of course, you only "rent" beer.
My sophomore year, the boyfriend and I got "pinned"... I doubt that people do that anymore and now that I think about it, there weren't many people who did that even then. It was supposed to be a sign that you are "engaged to be engaged." I guess a promise ring would be something like that.
I thought I'd marry him because I certainly did love him. But then, that spring, things started to change. He quit school and didn't tell me that (I learned that from his Mom, whom I adored. She was always the Mom that I wanted to be and looking back on my years of motherhood I never achieved anything of her greatness, but some of what I learned from her did turn up in my "momilies.") That became a huge rupture in our relationship. Then some other things happened that made me worry about where we were going.
My roommate that year signed up for a spring break trip to Bermuda (the same roommate who stole the shopping cart with me.) I still remember that it cost $99, including airfare and a room shared with other girls. It was, after all, 1969, and I recall regular gas was 25 cents a gallon. Without ever thinking my parents would ever allow me, they actually gave me the go-ahead to sign up.
(A little aside here...at some point in my life, I realized that my parents were always delighted to send me anywhere. I was always trouble...not so much to my Mom, but my Dad was always a problem. Well, I was the problem...and I was a problem to him until he moved in with me when he was 98...that was a lot of years for me to be a problem, especially since he lived to be 101. And then he finally liked me... I think. )
The story (or "stories" is more appropriate) from Spring Break will have to wait for me to write for you, as I have to pop in some frozen chicken pot pies for dinner. Thankfully, the hubs is very supporting of anything I do and is always happy with any food I put in front of him...and sometimes, truly, it doesn't even look like food.
THE CONTINUATION... Pot pies were baked and eaten, so the story picks up from here.
So off the roomie and I went off to sunny Bermuda. You didn't need a passport, and we were all piled into a charter plane from a no-name airline; there were kids from other colleges on the flight with us. I seem to remember that roomie knew a couple of people from her high school, but maybe I made that up.
I was too dumb to realize that this was probably not an air carrier with great safety records, but we didn't care. We were all about partying 24/7. We were taken by bus from the airport and found ourselves in a "Guest House" that was situated on the Belmont Hills Golf Course, in Warwick, somewhere between the 17th and 18th holes.
If you google the course now, you will see that it is a spectacular hotel, with pools, suites, a spa, etc. In 1969, I'm not sure what was there then since we were so far away from the main buildings we never saw them. Our accommodations were a rather run-down building with several suites in it, with dormitory style rooms. We were five girls bundled together in one bedroom on the second floor, with a small kitchen and one bathroom. Across the hall from us was another "suite" which was occupied by four boys, whom we soon found out were all on spring break from a Mortuary School in Massachusetts. That in itself was pretty funny, since these guys were real party animals; they were certainly not what one would see as a stereotypical undertaker. One of the funniest things I recall from our co-habitation with them is that they were always borrowing things from our suite: an extra dish, a pot, ice, etc. According to them, they had not nearly the equipment that we had. One morning we heard an early morning tap on the door, and there was one of the would-be embalmers who politely asked, "Do you have a toaster?" Of course, we did. His query was followed by "Do you have any bread?"
That same "Guest House" received an unwelcome visit from an errant golf ball that came crashing through the window, spraying glass on the floor, and narrowly missing one of us asleep in a bed. Since we had avoided loaning the broom from our rooms, the Boys From Boston, we were able to sweep up the mess, complaining to the manager who just shrugged, saying, "This happens quite often."
Since we were not on the "Modified American Plan" for food. I would guess that my parents must have given me money to eat, and I recall that there were a couple of Bermuda Tourism sponsored events like BBQ's and beach parties, but otherwise we had to find food. That was accomplished by our roommates, who were excellent at stuffing food under their jackets and sweatshirts and not paying for anything. I supposed I should have been guilty about that happening, but I was hungry and broke most of the week.
We'd all rented motor scooters, which was how we got around the small island, and now that I think about it now, we were all drinking all the time, so it's a miracle that none of crashed and killed ourselves or anyone else.