Part Ivy

Part Ivy
& -= all individual names have been changed to protect privacy 

I had never been to Connecticut before boarding the 2 PM Metronorth train bound for New Haven on a Wednesday morning in October of my high school senior year. I felt grown-up buying the ticket on my own, waiting with rakish business people, strung out artists, and those without homes. Though not my first independent commuter rail trip, it had been my only one that signaled college, the vaunted entrance into adulthood among my peers.

The seats were blue and red leather, worn from thighs, bags, pets in cases. They felt like my great aunt's couch: uncomfortable and yet familiar enough to inspire relaxation. I sat alone, two seats to myself, but closer to the window so I would feel accompanied  I debated whether to turn on the reading light or my Walkman. A Stevie Nicks song about the Imperial Hotel soon blasted through my headphones with one ear covering missing so that the plastic made a small indent into my outer lobe. I did not care if anyone else heard Stevie's raspy voice, its usual balm to my cluttered mind and my aching ear. I closed my eyes as the train ascended seemingly into the sky of northern Manhattan, the gray clouds brighter than the reading lights.

Before I was 16, Yale was just another four letter word to me. I had no connotations to the syllable, no attachments of any kind to the school. I did not know anyone who had gone there and dropped out, gone there and graduated, or who had even gone there to visit. As an early teen, I had read that Jodie Foster attended there and graduated the year I was born. After watching her inspiring powerful androgynous performance in the film, "Alice does't live here anymore," I felt like I did know her. But I didn't.

I knew few people with any connection to college though the generic abstract idea of "college" was part of my personal zeitgeist since I could pronounce the word. "You're going to college, there's no question about that," my parents would say whenever I did really well on assignment. "Don't worry, you're going to college, someday," they would reassure me (and perhaps themselves) when I did poorly in athletics or there were questions and stressors about finances.

My family narrative was that my mother had begun to attend a local public college "before anyone could get in," (i.e. open admissions). My father did not attend due to leaving for the army. My paternal uncle graduated from a business school and my maternal aunt briefly attended one. It was said that my grandmothers "could have gone to college" had their gender, generation, and/or geography been different, There were hopes that one of my paternal first cousins once removed would attend but he struggled socially in high school and graduated from a school that was also described as "more of a home" for troubled youth.

Growing up in a working class section of the Bronx, college seemed far away from the housing projects across the street that my elementary school friends and I attended. No one discussed higher or even secondary education, except occasionally teachers whose children were attending or had just graduated. College was something for people in Manhattan, people with trust funds, people on television.

In fact, I was introduced to the more concrete (though at times no less realistic) images of college, via television, my constant childhood companion. Langley, where three of the Facts of Life "girls" attended (Tootie attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts far) seemed fun and educational as did Hillman, a Historically Black College, where the young adult cast of "A Different World" attended. The promise of intellectual and social freedom - even roommates - appealed to me, even as a child.

Like Alex P Keaton on "Family Ties," I wanted to attend Princeton. I am not uncertain why, except that it was viewed as prestigious on the television show - so prestigious that even Alex was nervous about the interview and admissions process.  I could not locate Princeton, a mere 63 miles from my family's abode, on the Peanuts map adorning the wall opposite my bed. Nevertheless, in a letter I wrote to my seventh grade self, a class assignment about life goals, I vowed to myself that I would, unlike Alex, be accepted to Princeton. He sacrificed Princeton to be there for his heartbroken sister and went to Langley instead. An only child, I could not relate.

The summer I was 12, I visited the campus for the first time on a family trip. Abuzz from the movie, "IQ" about Albert Einstein (a Princeton resident the last two decades of his life, the campus seemed vivacious despite the paucity of students. I vowed to my great-uncle (by marriage) that in just over 6 years, I would enroll in the school. He seemed convinced, and so did I.

For the next several years, the real and daily vicissitudes of being a Hunter College High School student where I attended from grades 7 to 12, replaced any fantasies I had about higher education. The emotional and social stressors of attending this specialized high school were such that college seemed increasingly distant the closer the application time arrived. I felt so drained, depressed, and demoralized by my sophomore year that I felt "done" with school though I ironically still dreamed of becoming a psychologist. College felt like a punishment not a reward. I neither wanted to apply to Princeton nor anyone where else.

The high school I attended, however, focused on college from the moment we entered in the seventh grade. Referred to as "the joyful elite," the student body was expected to be accepted into schools of their choice. If a student did not do well in an eighth grade class, they were reassured that, "colleges wouldnt' see this." Attending SAT prep classes and memorizing flashcards were rituals. Extracurricular activities helped people to become "more well rounded."  Each year, one of the school newspapers published where each senior would attend. The assumption was that we were all "college material" ready to be molded into a particular, hopefully "good" school. Private liberal arts, technical science, and Ivy League schools were prized; public schools, were shunned, even mocked by faculty and students alike. Students who were not admitted to an acceptable school were often looked upon with a mixture of derision and pathos. Those who decided not to attend were often more talked about than to.  I wondered what the faculty would think of my family and friends who did not attend college, how they actually felt about the facilities staff who had not finished high school if they felt about them at all.

After a nearly lethal car accident the summer after my sophomore year, I had a renewed appreciation for life. Feeling convinced that I had a purpose, my motivation and mood improved. Simultaneously, I made new friends who perceived me as interesting and worthwhile to know. The neck brace I wore during the first few weeks, a vestige of the accident, likely added some intrigue.

One friend in particular, Jill, rekindled my sense of adventure, passion, and creativity. A year older, Jill was more focused on life after than during Hunter, which alone gave me hope. I had seen her in passing over the preceding 4 years but we never spoke or even made much eye contact. Yet when we did start speaking, it was as though we could not stop, as if the words could not come frenetically enough. We got high on each other.

"I got into Yale, " Jill announced two months into our friendship. She was running down the hallway in which we had begun to hang out daily. Jill was admitted "early decision," meaning that barring "extenuating circumstances," she was locked into attending. Her beaming smile was contagious as we embraced at the good news. Jill had found a way to actualize her passion for art history into a formal course of study. She was raised with socioeconomic privilege, from Manhattan, and possibly with a trust fund. Attending an Ivy was more of an answer than a question for her.

I now not only knew someone who attended an Ivy but was also friends with them, even "best friends" as Jill and I were increasingly calling each other other.  In one of the hallway conversations, I confessed to Jill that one of the reasons I wanted to attend Yale was so our friendship could continue   People wondered if we were dating but my feelings were purely and passionately platonic for Jill, who was dating someone else.

The contagion of Jill's enthusiasm for Yale had its bounds, however. The other very close friend I made in that time, Simone, and I decided that Brown University was best for us given our involvement with social justice activist causes such as anti-child labor and anti-death penalty movements.At one point, we met Michael Moore at a protest. Activism was part of our identity, our daily lives.   Regarding Brown, we were told and convinced ourselves,"it's an Ivy but not really an Ivy," meaning it was less pretentious, elitist, and less academically rigid (though likely just as rigorous as the others). "There aren't even requirements,"we would tell each other. At a local college fair, we discovered an even more flexible higher education setting: The New School, which "didn't even have a campus," we said to each other. At that same fair, one of the college representatives did not attend. While we sat at the table, our peers at different high schools, earnestly asked us questions about that school. We must have exuded confidence until we repeatedly said, "I don't know" and "I'm not sure."

The closer I became to Simone, the more Jill seemed to want me to attend Yale, even after the orientation, Bull Dog Days, when she was almost abducted by a cab driver in New York City. We reasoned that her survival was a sign that she was fated to be an Eli.

We talked on the phone for hours the night before I re-took the SATs, She felt bad about keeping me awake but our conversation about mutual acquaintances was so interesting and enlivening that I felt more energized to last minute cram for the test the morning after. When I received the score, a few months later, I was relieved that it was deemed high enough to be a contender for Brown or Yale.

However, the summer before my senior year, I was again becoming ambivalent about going to college at all. Attending rallies and volunteering for activist campaigns showed me another side of life, that was about making history not merely reading about it. Simone was feeling similarly but knew that college was destiny for her due to pressure from herself and her family to eventually become a doctor.

During the summer before senior year, when I was a camp counselor and Jill was visiting family in Europe, I further confessed to her in a letter that one of the main reasons I wanted to attend an Ivy League school was to transcend my family and neighborhood's histories. To prove to people (precisely who was unclear and irrelevant) that someone who attended a middle school that was rated 13th worst in New York City could achieve conventional educational success. In the same letter, I voiced my concerns about being associated with such elitist bourgeious trappings, about attending college at all.

When we spoke on the phone in late summer, Jill was in the midst of preparing to become a Yale "frosh."  As she was going through her room, determining what stayed and what went, I heard her say, "You're going to college,", in a tone distinct from my parents' but as strong, as certain. "You've worked too hard not to go.

I found it hard to disagree and to agree, and so I said nothing but, "I know." Over the next several weeks, Jill gradually accepted that my heart and mind were set on Brown.

"Our friendship may be even stronger if we have to work harder to keep in contact," I reassured Jill and myself.

"Maybe," she wondered.

Within two weeks, my first missive from Jill arrived. Dotted with exclamation points and brimming with exciting stories of nude dances, Internet excursions, papers about esoteric parts of history, and vegetarian roommate,, the letter also contained a Yale application.

"I can't wait until you visit," Jill's last words on the page, rang through my ears as New York gave way to Connecticut on the train. When the tape abruptly stopped in my Walkman, I decided to explore to listen to the radio but my pre-programmed stations were now mostly airing static.

My mind raced back to the previous week, my "alum" interview at Brown. My excitement mixed with nervousness when the black and white postcard arrived telling me when, where and by whom I would be interviewed, the closest I had ever been to becoming a Brown alum myself.  Though the interview took place a half mile from my high school and was on a Friday evening, I trekked back to the Bronx right after school to dress up, using my clothes from a summer office internship but this time wearing a tie. Not knowing how to tie a "real one," I had hoped that the clip would not not break during the interview.

My father and his friend took me down to the ritzy Park Avenue building in which I would be questioned about my qualifications. My father and his friend convinced me I would do great. Their belief in me was soothing as was seeing a dog get on the elevator once I entered the building.

Upon entering the apartment, I was served tea and hoped I was not drinking it too fast, wishing I had crazy glued my tie to my shirt. I had wondered if I should have brought her something but it seemed like she had everything she needed, and besides, couldn't that have been considered bribery?

After some initial pleasantries, the interviewer, a White elderly woman, did not initially ask me much about who I was, what I was studying, what I was interested in, but about my pedigree, particularly where (not if) my grandparents had attended college. When I responded truthfully, her tone changed to become perfunctory, the exchange between us feeling more like a paper application than an in person conversation. She no longer smiled.

"I want you to remember that Brown is not need blind," a fact that I had realized I had forgotten.

"Thank you," I stammered, and with that, the interview concluded. When my father and his friend picked me up, I told him, "it went well but we'll see." Evidently, Simone later had a similar experience with the same interviewer.

Subsequently, I felt that Yale could be more a plausible option. As I departed the train, I was impressed by New Haven Union Station's quaintness coupled with its grittiness, its relatively small size and shops, the lack of an electronic board. Jill met me at the station and looked tired.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said, fighting a yawn.

We took a cab back here to her dorm where she told me how trying the first several weeks had actually been, of missed assignments, classes, and opportunities. I had wondered how the disappointments could have co-occurred with all of the events in her recent letter, smiling students and southern New England foliage adorning the lawns, the Gothic architecture that Jill so loved.

As I told her of the dubious Brown interview experience, Jill said what I was thinking, "I think you're meant to be here."

On the train back to New York City later that afternoon, I felt more layered and in some ways, less sure than ever.

Introduction

As a child of New York City and non-driving "transit-dependent" adult of New England, buses and trains have been among the few constants in my life. Indeed, I would not be able to live the life I do without them. They have granted me the opportunities for reading perspective-changing books and articles; listening to soulful music; catching up on school or professional work;  making (and losing) friends; as well as acquainting myself with people and places I would not find in everyday life.

The following vignettes chronicle these experiences (and more!). They include: my first subway ride from my home borough to an unknown one; weekday travels to and from an exciting but daunting new secondary school; commuter train trips to and from an even more daunting new college; the first public transit ride I took after 9-11; the promise (perhaps misleading at times) of a new life after graduate school;  and a cross-country bus trip later in adulthood replete with surprises. 

Here we go...