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
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.
