The Class of '64

We

were here.

We were here in our beanies and blazers – preppies,

pub-schoolers, commuters too – college guys now,

but wondering how much those other guys knew.

Elvis, King of Pop, sang It’s Now or Never, and OWL

Lacey challenged: Look right, look left, one

of you three won’t make it, and backed it up

with a tough English exam, required Calculus

and a hundred yard swimming test.

What did we freshmen know when Castro

nationalized Esso?  When Khrushchev pounded

the UN podium with his shoe?  When the Civil Rights Act

of 1960 passed? When candidate Kennedy

spoke on the steps of the Hartford Times?

When the US committed troops to Vietnam? 

But when Playboy’s first  club opened in Chicago

when the Magnificent Seven screened in theatres

and the Flintstones on TV, when Cassius Clay

won his first professional bout, when beer

appeared in aluminum cans, we were ready.

It didn’t take us long to find The View,

and to learn our way to Conn College,

Holyoke and Smith.

As the of terror of teachers and tests waned, professors

became mentors, role-models and friends.  We

knew their first names, and followed their lives

if not all their lectures.  George Cooper, Snortin’

Norton Downs and Gene Davis made history

relevant and we became lawyers and professors. 

Bob Battis taught the dismal science, Ward Curren

was inspirational, and we became financiers

and financial advisors.  Gus Sapega brought

our punch cards to United Aircraft’s mainframes and we

became programmers and entrepreneurs.  Wendell

Burger in Biology and Henry DePhillips in Chem –

and we became doctors.  Trinity’s first woman

professor, Maggie Butcher taught us math and we

became actuaries and an insurance company president. 

We were here for Saturday morning classes –

well sort of – and were rewarded with hopes

of winning a football game.  And one glorious

Saturday afternoon in 1962, we did beat

undefeated Amherst 25-23.  Soccer brought us

to NCAA tournaments, and Barry Leghorn

set a basketball scoring record.  Baseball, track,

the beginning of crew – fourteen varsity sports,

who knew?

Music came to campus – Joan Baez,

Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, James Brown,

and the Ronettes.  Ah, the Ronettes –

three libido-pumping women in tight

white skirts slit to the thigh who were ready

to Be My, Be My Baby.  Fraternities, clubs

and musical groups separated us, and joined us

together too.  So did mixers, dating and proms.

We pledged and partied, played and performed

and hoisted our dates through Northam windows. 

And when we got too enthusiastic, the Medusa

reminded us how to be gentlemen.

We grew here – learning

something of ourselves, and of others

and of the world beyond our studies. 

As upper classmen, we debated  

the festering issues we had hadn’t

understood as freshmen – Castro

and our failed Bay of Pigs, Khrushchev

and the Cuban Missile Crisis,  Allen

and Chatfield arrested with SNCC  

in Georgia, President Kennedy

shot and dead in Dallas, the build-up  

of troops in Vietnam, the ticking clock

of our own draft eligibility. 

By 1964, there were Playboy Clubs

in a dozen cities – but not Hartford. 

Dr Strangelove was at the movies

and Peyton Place on TV.  Ousting King Elvis,

the Beatles starred on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In Miami, Cassius Clay TKO-ed Liston,

became Muhammed Ali, and a Muslim.

Beer companies introduced pop-top tabs

for our aluminum cans.  And at Trinity College

on a hot Sunday, ready to graduate

we were here.  We 

were here.