I was a one-year senior at what was then reputed to be a "prestigious" New England prep school.
I had never been to boarding school before, and I was admitted because I was a successful participant
in a joint program they had overseas. So I went. I was miserable. I felt like I had been transplanted to
a combination boot camp/elite frat party where I was not invited. The first edition of the class newspaper
had a front page article saying the local girls' boarding school thought my class consisted of "freaks, jocks
and zeros," and prominently ran my photo under the headline. Good way to make new students feel right
at home, eh? To give you an idea, the alumnus who interviewed me was one George H.W. Bush. But this
was 1969, and I had no idea who the guy was. I have been assured by the school that it has changed 100%,
with no more prisoner-of-war control over every waking second of the students' dorm lives, no more compulsory
religion on Sundays, and complete co-ed integration. Maybe. But that is not the school I attended. Practically
the only classmates I found with their head on straight were the token black guys brought in from ghettos
around the country (we all agreed that 90% of our classmates were totally fucked up, so they assured me
I must have some African blood, which I don't LOL). The white guys, with maybe three exceptions out of over
100, all had their heads stuck up so far into their elite asses that I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there.
My final revenge was that at graduation, for the class picture, I had my brother, who was not a senior, and
was not even attending that school, sit along side me, a scandal which even now, I have heard, is in mentioned
at the school. Our class picture at that school has a ringer in it. That such a thing is even grounds for scandal
rather than a laugh gives y'all an idea of what I was dealing with.
After getting free of that place, I attended college in Philadelphia. I was having trouble deciding what to
choose as my major, and thought I might want to specialize in spoken European languages, something
for which I has a minor gift. The individual majors adviser, instead of offering guidance, stuck his nose up
in the air and told me he was not running a school for tour guides. The guy was from the history department,
what the hell did he know? Also, as I was neither Jewish, black, Irish nor Italian, so I was an oddball here as well.
Fine, but not fun. Philadelphia did have the advantage of being a short train ride up to NYC or down to DC,
so this was a more tolerable environment in which to survive--though hardly conducive to establishing many
close personal relationships.
So, I keep in touch with the few people I want to keep in touch with, That's zero from the prep school, and
a handful from college, and have blown off both schools, and never attended a reunion. Of course, now that
I live mostly in Europe, no reunions are convenient anyway. I keep thinking, maybe the next ten years, but
then I come to my senses. WTF for?
And yes, they do ask for money. They all have, especially now, the means to determine that I have been, no
thanks to them, successful at what I do. I give to what I consider causes that benefit a broad range of people,
not elite institutions that let me know I was to be tolerated, but not included. Let them get it from the
people who have benefited from the more tolerant attitude they claim now prevails, or from my classmates,
who were the rich guys who had their noses stuck up so far in the air, they never saw me while I was there in the first place.
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