High School Harry; West Coast; Negro; “Achieved Success at Yale”

How Yale enabled a confident naif to game “success.”

Above descriptions proposed as applying to me were suggested to merit a class essay of broader scope. This being somewhat a soapbox—irresistible to a Yalie, no?—, here goes. If nothing else, material to guide one into the precious (love mine!) late afternoon nap.

First, from perspective of one who’s thus far fended off two episodes of the Big C, if reading this, you’re successful! You probably went on after Yale to succeed in family life, occupational life, etc. We were admitted as smart strivers. We were likely to be successful.

I get what’s meant by “achieved success at Yale.” Himself a highly respected MD epitomizing Yale success, the soliciting person—fellow Silliman “(Sala)mander”—meant securement of time/place emblems, badges, markers we inveterate strivers then strove for. (Such predictive of, hardly guarantors of more meaningful later success in life.) He likely recalls I stumbled badly academically early on. I wasn’t a varsity athlete or campus notable. Yet I ended a Scholar of the House tapped for the premier senior society, went on to Yale Law, from there snared a Rhodes scholarship. (Wassup indeed wit dat?!)

Yes, my belated emerging was improbable. In my opinion it resulted from an equally unusual context of origin that weaves in the title items above (race in particular) and more. As I was invited, with indulgence of a now hoary, doubtless jaded, sage, critical, but, hopefully, still-receptive-to-blah-blah-that-amuses-and-sometimes-provokes audience, I’ll indulge myself in sharing (possibly ad nauseum) what I hope proves a singular, possibly provocative, also evocative saga (with asides). There is, of course, the lure of nap fodder.

I’ll note that while I was and still am competitive and ambitious—weren’t/aren’t we all?—, I did not aim for the aforementioned “success.”* Mostly, I was just about experiencing (truly enjoying!) Yale. I tried and did this ‘n that. My initial academic stumble didn’t faze overly. I came to Yale sufficiently tempered by life challenges as to be unlikely to be fazed by anything Yale presented. I found my footing, seized opportunity that in its expediency appealed. I had luck. Yale, belated baubles and acquiring them assisted an insecure-yet-cocky, angry, somewhat calculating young man to go forward with greater confidence, greater calculating/scheming ability, considerably less anger. That’s pretty much the deal.

* An eventual career creating/running a small business evinces that pursuing traditional (Yale) success indicia isn’t exactly what I’m about.

Assuming you plow further, via assist of a memory surprisingly exacting as to detail, I’ll take you back to not-always-bright-but-surely-exciting, indelible years, that—how did this happen?!—are so far behind us. And I’ll name (some) names!

The telling/unraveling naturally invites a measure of pomposity. Umm. Okay.

Sort of setting the stage

Yale “diversity” in 1965 largely meant greater percentage admitted from public high schools (PHS). We were, I think, 2nd or 3rd class with a slight PHS admits edge. I graduated 12th in a class of 600+ from public Los Angeles High School. Respecting adjustment to the Yale competitiveness hothouse, I’ll note the one boy ranked ahead of me (future Beverly Hills shrink), although not valedictorian, was acknowledged to be smarter than all others. I’m pretty sure having no notion “I am smartest” stood me in good stead coming to Yale. In such regard in 7th-8th grade in Washington, D.C. (before a family move to CA), another was head and shoulders above me and others, and he entered Yale with us. (Out there, Bob W?)

More influential than PHS was being one of very few minorities plunked into Yale’s then near-uniform landscape of White Eastern privilege. We “Negroes” in fall ‘65 were about 25,* Asians fewer.** I suspect our few Hispanics were more privileged sorts.

* Record number by far. 70 Blacks matriculated the following year. Re the latter, I recall a “brothah” from East St. Louis standing on Chapel Street wearing alligator shoes. Not at all ready for Yale.

** One, Chinese-American, was a roommate for two years and remains a close friend.

Race, as will become apparent, has been a huge factor in my life. (Probably the lives of most Black Americans.*) Race remains a huge factor in America. (Yeah—duh-h!) Also important in my story, related to race, was a considerable personal measure of family dysfunction. If Yale daunted and intimidated some, for me Yale was a welcome escape.

* I’d dearly like to get into a current THING of mine—i.e., drawing as I see it, a badly needed distinction between (I believe) less damaged/troubled/impacted/impeded immigrant/immigrant-descended Caribbean/African Blacks/”African-Americans”—think Stokely Carmichael, Colin Powell, Eric Holder, Barack Obama (!!), our late Glenn DeChabert?—, and Blacks tracing back to America’s particularly disabling brand of slavery. I’d like to term the latter “Original (Native?) Black Americans” (OBAs, NBAs). Think Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, MLK, Jesse Jackson. I’ll use the OBA expression. However, I am severely chided for prolixity. If interested, see my blog—Yowlingwolf.com.

Respecting eventual Yale success, a cynical explanation might also be that once the threat of Vietnam draft abated, I flowered. That’s not so. I indeed began with grades so poor I was reclassified 1-A draft eligible at least twice. Vietnam hovered as a threat not to be resolved until 1969. However, if anything, I think anti-war sentiment was a factor uniting classmates of different background. Draft concern didn’t burden my journey overly.

Road to Yale

Advice/mentoring of a savvy, Jamaica-born paternal uncle led me to apply for and win an inaugural National Achievement scholarship.* In recognition whereof, the city of Los Angeles bestowed an impressive commendation, along with a photo of myself, my dear mother, seven younger sisters and brothers, all standing alongside newly-elected Negro mayor Tom Bradley. I also won a California State scholarship and was interviewed on the radio.** As was probably true for many of us in spring 1965, I was sure I was The Shit.

* [Affirmative action] scholarship for Negroes whose SATs didn’t qualify for a National Merit.

** All featured in the employee newsletter of the East LA Safeway, where, as a grocery bagger, I earned a princely $1.87/hr. (I envied checkers earning over $3/hr.) A year earlier I had almost been fired following my first month (pre union membership) trial for not bagging fast enough. Humph!

Arrogantly, I applied only to H, Yale (in that order), and—sop to college counselor, an alum—Stanford. And was mystified to not get into my first choice. Had I had a personal interview for Yale and Stanford, I likely would have been rejected by those as well.*

* Here, race enters in. I interviewed north of Wilshire (Blvd.), total foreign White folk turf, with a smug H-grad lawyer. I can see him now—loosened tie, no jacket, hands folded over paunch. Immediately uncomfortable, I became more so. He questioned trashy novels I’d naively listed as outside reading. Why didn’t I take college courses at UCLA final semester? (Bus to Westwood rather than hang out under the bleachers socializing final semester?!) I was busted, not H material.

Early September, 1965, via Greyhound, from a terminal mere blocks from rioting, burning Watts, Mr. The Shit, eager and excited, headed off to second choice Yale.

Race and family dysfunction

While still a powerful influence for most Blacks, race was more so in the 1950s, 60s. Had my dad lived,* I likely would have gone to H. I’d have been more polished, less angry.

* In 1956-57 in Boston my dad was a PhD grad student at BU (in poli sci). He would win a Ford Foundation grant and appointment to the Dept. of State Office of African Affairs in Washington, DC. I was 9, and he walked me around the H campus, conveying, “I expect you to be here one day.” First generation middle child of Jamaican immigrants, the GI Bill put my dad through Oberlin College and Wisconsin for a master’s. Having grown up among privileged Whites amid proud, clannish Jamaicans in Montclair, New Jersey, he was utterly comfortable, confident among Whites. Defying family prejudice, he had played with OBA Americans as a child. He married a beautiful (WWII Negro GI pin-up), college-educated OBA farm girl (also daughter of a doctor) from Tennessee, my mother.

In April 1957 he entered Mass. General for a routine (at the time) ulcers operation. He was fine post-op, and suddenly gone. Investigation by a Black lawyer family friend (later a federal judge) into possible racial bias as possible causal factor (implicating the attending White physician and White hospital staff) proved inconclusive. The indelible, corrosive story I came to live with is that in 1957 Boston, America, “the doctor was too powerful.” This traumatic event and its effects changed me. Subsequent experience conflated with this trauma and effect to produce a volatile inner persona.   

Awareness of race as problematic and myself being Negro dates only back to 3rd grade—1955-56 in Tallahassee, Florida. Previously, age 4-7, I lived on a tiny, Episcopalian-sponsored college campus 90 miles from the coastal capital of Monrovia, Liberia, surrounded by jungle.* Same as my mother and (less so) father, and most of their forbears, all descended from slave-owner/slave unions, I was fair-skinned, especially in contrast to native Liberians, I thought of myself as American, the same as children of White faculty. This racial innocence began changing in all-black 3rd grade in strictly segregated Tallahassee.** I would change further in Boston the following year.

* Cuttington College, my father’s first teaching assignment after getting his master’s.

** My father was registrar of all-black Florida A & M Univ., where my mother’s older sister taught English. While there he wrote letters-to-the-ed in support of the nascent Birmingham bus boycott.

Awareness of race and discrimination, and growing resentment in this regard, flowered in Washington, DC, years 9-13, where my mother moved me and my two younger sisters to be near an older brother following my father’s sudden death. I became immersed in Negro culture in a mostly Negro city, surrounded by racist southern culture. I recall Glen Echo amusement park in nearby Maryland being open to “coloreds” only on Thursdays.

Within a year my mother married a brown-skinned, Howard University medical school dropout. This furthered my racial education. Mr. T-like in build and (somewhat) appearance, chemist by training, former paratrooper, my new, suddenly-resident-in-our-house stepfather was charismatic, energetic, intelligent. Owing, however, to rejection in childhood by his fair, mixed-race mother on account of his darker complexion, not—in my view—unlike many OBA males, he harbored inner torment and anger that periodically built to eruption. Stretching truth to impress new acquaintances was habitual.* Learning to anticipate this volatile man’s moods and live/function in a drastically changed household regime began a mere ten months after my natural (namesake) father’s death.

* E.g., he’d say our 130 lb. bullmastiff dogs weighed “200” lbs. I learned quickly not to correct him.

On the positive side, having grown up in Minnesota among mostly Whites, same as my father, my stepfather was comfortable around them. To the point of casual, confident, calm dealings with (at the time) always-White police.* Which impressed and instructed. My stepfather taught me to use a slide rule, assisted with much-disliked science fair projects, helped get me into a special gifted junior high school program in the Georgetown section of the city with mostly Whites. He taught me to hunt—received a small-bore (.410) shotgun for my 11th birthday!—, introduced me to drag-racing. My mother loved him dearly in spite of his “moments.” Not infrequently during our 7-year coexistence, during which period my mother bore the man five sons (three more sons to follow), victim of a tortured apparition out of control over an imagined slight or disobedience, I would pick myself up off the floor. (I learned to launch to the safety of the floor with the first slap to my face.)

* When (inevitably) stopped for DWB (driving while Black), King’s English and a calm, even friendly “Is there a problem, Officer?” is heard, police officers, Black now as well as White, relax. The situation rarely escalates. No question an affront for Black drivers. Simply reality in America.

Encouraged by an MD friend from medical school (who got my stepfather into medical supply sales), also to escape the overly attentive Jersey Jamaican clan, my stepfather moved the family to Los Angeles when I was 13. I may note that the drive cross country (in a fine Mercedes bought second hand from the Spanish embassy that I polished), me navigating with a map (!!), with my two sisters, the son of another former med school classmate (a year my junior, who lived with us in LA, contributing to my stepfather’s cash flow schemes), and two bullmastiffs in a trailer, was exciting, an adventure. Life with my stepfather included horseback riding in Malibu, courtesy of one of his friends, of whom, both Black and White, he had many. The man provided a remarkable, instructive, in many respects tragic example of an OBA striving to be all he could be in a country and culture that demanded he deny aspects of core identity, especially masculinity.*

* The family moved to Minnesota after I left for Yale. There my stepfather quickly ruined a restaurant business left by his namesake dad. He earned a PhD (psychology, natch), donned a dashiki, taught at both the U. of Minnesota and St. Thomas College (his alma mater), neither institution aware of the prohibited dual arrangement. He co-wrote a well-received book about his Down syndrome son (my half-brother)—Moose. For years, major assist from my mother, sisters, eventually brothers (and mostly for the money), he conducted a foster/group home in our rural eleven-acre homestead (including horses) east of St. Paul, through which some 125 inner-city youth, most Black, passed.

How this impacted a classmate who came to dwell among and know some of you is somewhat illustrated by the following episode. I recall it as clearly as if yesterday.

One morning before leaving for school, age 16 and a HS junior, I found myself standing, eerily calm, on stairs leading up from the foyer of our “Sugar Hill” Los Angeles home,* steel-blue Ruger .22 caliber, Colt six-gun replica in hand, listening to a first (that I was aware of) episode of domestic abuse ongoing in the adjoining living room out of my view. Given the powerful build of my stepfather, I knew I couldn’t merely wing him. Moreover, without him, how would bills be paid? Also, promising life imagined after a not-far-in-future “escape” to college would be ruined.** Deciding my mother was okay (and she was), I returned the gun to its holster in an upstairs closet and went off to school.***

* Just west of Western Ave. off Pico Blvd., ours was a mostly Black, middle-to-upper-middle-class neighborhood we could barely afford. Neighbors (in an era of residential segregation) were doctors, a dentist, a minister. Singer Lou Rawls lived in my hood. The Robert McFerrins, including “Don’t worry, be happy” son, Bobby Jr., and his sister, were family friends across the street.

** I would go east to college near my father’s family. I had roughly calculated months and days.

*** Today at family gatherings, stepfather long deceased, I joke about my mother (hopefully 94 and still sharp when this is read) “taking one for the team.”

Savvy acquired at Yale

Racially and economically, my HS was wonderfully diverse.* We mixed and got along well, which is celebrated at reunions.** I came to Yale largely ignorant of nuance of person/group type beyond Negro, White, Asian. I was aware some have more money, some less. No big deal. Yale educated me in more subtle nuancing of class, rank, social hierarchy.

* LAHS then was 50% Black (far lower percentage in college-track classes), 20% White, remainder Asian (mostly Japanese-American). I recall one Hispanic. He transferred into my class senior year.

** Such was racial unconcern that at football games, and to this day at reunions (including our 50th), we proudly burst forth in the decidedly un-PC cheer, “Spooks, Buddaheads, Gray-boys and Jews! With that combination, how can we lose?!” I’ll note I didn’t in HS glean the Jew/Gray-boy distinction.  

Pretty quickly, a newly-met Yale roommate alerted me that “ski” at the end of his surname indicated Polish origin. I learned that certain names signaled Jewish and Italian. “Ian” ending surnames of HS classmates had meant Armenian descent. (Hunh!) Of course, I knew the “N” word. “Polack, mick, wop, kike, chink” became known. Also, who/what a “WASP” was, and that “wombat” was a pejorative for menial worker. Two roommates had attended the Choate School. This offered a window into private boarding schools.*

* One was the Polish roommate. He’d only attended Choate his final two high school years. Moreover, living at home, not boarding, he was sometimes taunted as a “day-hop.” The other was Chinese-American from Long Island, NY, and he’d also only attended junior/senior year. As non-WASPs, both were outsiders, subject to subtle, not-so-subtle hazing. They both revered and despised their alma mater, and were a source of insider scoop re “preppies.”

Prep-public school divide

In my view, “preppies/preps” present, perhaps shallowly, as coolly confident. I suspect in most instances they were/are better prepared academically. College, even Yale, was but a minor step up from senior year. Public schoolers tend to be less prepared, somewhat naive. Our start is uneven. There is probably more academic casualty. However, if rough at the edges, public schoolers more than make up for this in unbridled (uncool) excitement and enthusiasm—at being away from home for the first time, at the newness, the opportunities.

Before advent of social media, public schoolers weren’t bullied into, as I perceive inevitable, cautiousness espousing different views, conformity imposed by single-sex boarding situations during impressionable early teen years. Conformity demanded by public school (of those willing) was, primarily, grubbing for grades, extra-curricular indicia of success, being first in line. The foregoing I think accounts for—my impression—greater academic success at Yale of public schoolers in the long run. Also, greater likelihood in later life to seek/discover niches beyond conformist, corporate, professional avenues—road to predictably comfortable lives—that prep schools and Yale point graduates toward.

Not questioning in the least, I conformed to Yale’s then-mandated coat-and-tie-at-meals regimen. White-bandaged penny loafers, however, I deemed preppy affectation. Apart from my quasi-prep Choate roommates, I had scant association with the WASP preppy species until senior year. An early incident, however, ingrained an aversion to preps.

Standing in line in Commons one day for lunch, I looked up, and for the first time spied the massive wooden catwalk high up under the roof. Excited, I tugged at the sleeve of a tall, handsome classmate just in front of me, and also signaled his companion in front of him. (The two had been talking.) I pointed to the catwalk and exclaimed, “Look at that!”

To which one DR (Phillips Exeter, I believe), didn’t look up.* Nor his friend. Their bemused, blasé reaction was impressive. Rather, they laughed at me. And I despised them and all preppies at that moment.

* Know it was you, D. Callin’ you out. Cause I know from Oxford (fellow Rhodes scholar) and Yale Law you’re a good guy. You’ve done your penance (kidding, sort of) and more with the NoCal Environmental Defense Fund. You can take it. Yo! I think you epitomized prep cool for many.

Yale administers a (helpful!) butt kicking

From the start, pre-med was problematic. Add intro German M-F 8 a.m. (Herr Zuberbuehler), having lousy study habits (public school effect?), being way over-extended,* enjoying lingering, blah-blahing at meals, carousing to late hours following wholly inadequate study. Given 8 a.m. classes, I was usually sleep-deprived. And I was happy.

* Tried out for, made glee club. Made first boat, frosh crew. In addition had dining hall bursary job.**

** Owing to schedule conflict, I was assigned to my residential college, Silliman. Likely for embarrassment and appearances reasons, this wasn’t normally done. However, no big deal. Accepting that others enjoyed financial advantage, I greeted and waved to classmates from the dish machine.

In retrospect, I deem my early academic stumble fortunate and a key to eventual “success at Yale.” A floor so low was established that, unless I quit, got drafted, or was bounced out, upward was the only trajectory. To this day I counsel (other people’s) children heading to college, “Fool around your first year. Have fun. Get C’s.”* “Then get down to business. It’ll be assumed you ‘caught on.’ Low grades will be ignored.”

* Lest suicides and lawsuits result, I don’t think lower grades are given these days.

Nowhere to go but up

Many may recall the precise numerical grading system when we entered. “Ranking scholar” (top ten percent) was 88 average GPA, dean’s list 85 or 86. Far lower grades, I would learn, were forthcoming without apology.*

* Current “snowflake” students (I’ll adopt that pejorative), beneficiaries of inflated grading, “all-are-wonderful” encomiums, and participation trophies, likely would commit hara-kiri under this regime.**

** Oops! Did I just commit “cultural appropriation,” trigger our one or two Japanese classmates or their children? Bollux to that! See http://www.nhregister.com/opinion/20160107/forum-some-counter-demands-and-advice-for-yale-student-protesters for my December 2016 New Haven protest of today’s hyper-sensitive, censorious nonsense following the pilloried-Silliman-master [Cristakis] outrage. [Photo courtesy of tall, blonde frosh daughter of D-port classmate, walking past from Bingham.]

Unknowingly following my accidental prescription for success, I completed first term with a masterly 69 GPA, rising next term (despite another Adv. Calc. disaster) to 74. Third term (fall ’67), still pre-med (Organic Chem I with same 5-day German ordeal, but calculus in rear-view mirror), I ratcheted to a 79.

I’ll note that nowhere in my journey did I lose faith in myself. Extracurricular overload coupled with poor study habits was a built-in excuse for poor performance. A freak injury put me on crutches late first term frosh year, making me quit crew.* That freed up more study time with less fatigue. I ditched (a bit boring) glee club in order to buckle down.

* Leaning/reaching over a metal lip to grasp/pull dishes in the dining hall job bruised my pelvic bone and ligaments attached to it. Re crew [apologies, RL & rowers], anonymous masochism wasn’t me.

Light dawns on Marblehead

In retrospect, a mid-sophomore year breakthrough made all the difference.

Early second semester, a chilly, cloudy early afternoon, I exited my Silliman entry to (major ugh!) head up Science Hill to an Organic Chem. II lab. Mid-quad, the thought occurred, “Wonder if I can get credit for (narrowly passed) Organic I, without completing Organic II?” (Syllabus said both must be completed for credit.) Hanging a right, I walked to the office of then Silliman dean, “Winky” Palmer, in the entry across from Timothy Dwight. I informed him I’d decided to drop pre-med.* Hopefully, I posed my question.

* Ambition to become a psychiatrist had abated. Hardly out of the emotional woods, I would pursue psychology leading to… I didn’t know.

Mirabile dictu! “No problem,” said Winky. Therewith thereupon ensued a new phase of academic endeavor and success. I took more psych, some anthro. (And to this day remain insufficiently enlightened in important traditional areas.) 79 average first term increased to 84.* Honors-pass-low-pass-fail grading was instituted junior year (to foil draft boards?), and I got mostly honors. Here I’ll digress to further explore racial influence in my tale.

* Thanks to 96 in Margaret Mead’s class of 600+. [Her grading raised term class average 2 points!] Memorably, she opined, “You’re all smart and hard-working. You all deserve at least B’s.”

Race factor (cont.)

As noted, all-black 3rd grade in rigidly segregated Tallahassee, Florida (1955-56), impressed upon me there was Negro and White America, the latter much the advantaged. Also noted, owing to appearance, previously (living in Africa) I’d identified as American, even White.* Some who may recall me (not any who knew me) may not have realized I was Negro (later Black/African-American). The betwixt/between, not-quite-one-or-the-other positioning has long been a source of confusion (for others and, for a long time, myself), agitation, occasional awkward, also amusing moments, and frequent deep contemplation.

* Suffice that my large family spans the color spectrum. Being taken for White is both advantage and disadvantage. Confusion sometimes provoked (as walking example of America’s complex racial history) can provoke mistrust in both Whites and Blacks. It was so for my mother decades ago in Memphis, TN. DNA testing shows us both to be 34% West African, 65% Northern European.

[GIFT TO CLASS! Invention of mine.: Does the “never trust anyone over 30!” generation want to be “old,” “aging,” “senior”?!—pejoratives having effect of diminishing, pushing us to pasture in youth-obsessed America? HELL, NO! So-o-o… Going forward…

Be “UBER!” vs. “old,” “senior”, “ubering” vs. “aging”, “uberpa” vs.—ugh!—“grampa,” “pop-pop”. Meaning above, over, in German—superior. UBER HAS POWER! Uber is something to be aspired to. (Yes. Aware of “Deutchland Uber Alles”—Germany over all the world—, formerly in the German national anthem, now banned, ubermenschen. I studied German, remember. Probably where the ride-sharing behemoth got its name.) SEIZE THE POWER, CLASSMATES! We’re UBERS!]

Doubtless unlike some Black classmates, I never got suspicious looks from campus police and others while at Yale. (Remaining) Black class members likely have stories in this regard that I do not. (A YAM article years ago addressed the unusual percentage of Black 60’s grads who have passed on… Possibly stress factors?) Being spared overt, random racism on the part of townies and Yale persons who didn’t know me was unquestionably a plus. Those who knew me, after puzzling my identity, tucked “Negro” into the usual Yale hierarchical nuancing. I’ll note that when “Black” and Black Power became au courant, on occasion some fellow Black Yalies used my appearance to discredit my voice.*

* I recall BS in this regard from (I’m pretty sure) the late Glenn DeChabert. I admired his brashness.

Race and Yale intimidation

In retrospect, race and background buffered against intimidation by Yale or classmates. After living/dealing with my stepfather, little intimidated me. Respecting Whites, I did not dislike individuals. I was friendly with numerous White classmates in JHS (Washington, DC) and HS. A White HS best friend attended P, and we remain friends. In general, however, I was suspicious of, sometimes resentful toward Whites. A White dude messed with me, he was looking for trouble.

Thus, I sized up my roommates, including a fourth, White, from money in Iowa.* If necessary, I was confident I could physically kick their asses. (And asses of all others—all White—on the dorm floor.) I thought in this way. Unlike, I suspect, most Yalies, I’d had the occasional fistfight growing up. Inadvertently, I did kick a classmate’s ass.** Defensively, I also punched another in the face during a snowball fight freshman year on Old Campus.

* A fellow public-schooler, FH swam backstroke on the (then great) frosh Yale swim team. Sophomore year, returning on the Merritt Parkway from a mixer at Briarcliff Manor, we went the fastest I’ve ever traveled in an automobile—128 mph in F’s new Jaguar XKE sports car. (Out there F?)

* BB, brilliant (double 800 SATs), only 16 from NJ. (We became friends. Went to Atlantic City together once.) On behalf of sleeping roommate, late Bud Bynack from NE, he raged from his dorm room about 1 p.m. to upbraid a gaggle of us making noise in the hall. (Two BBs!) I was closest, and angry BB was in my face and space—same as my stepfather before I’d get knocked down. Reflexively, my (left) arm came up, caught B in the solar plexus, causing him to drop instantly. Total lucky punch, although not for him. He fell writhing, groaning on the hall floor.

Observing/registering the shock of fellow Yalies standing around, I went into bad-ass, Negro-from-urban-ghetto mode. I cursed B as a “White mothahfuckah,” and my reputation as a (Negro) bad-ass not to be messed with was sealed. Which I deemed cool. Yeah. Quite a bit of anger in me. Far less now, but still some. I think any Black man of my vintage and earlier worth his salt—OBA or no—understandably harbors racial resentment and anger re poor treatment by Whites.***

*** I believe violent disposition lurks beneath a thin veneer of civilized behavior. (Made thinner in this country by current POTUS.) Unfortunately, of course, OBA males in urban hoods often manifest violent behavior. I am certain that perception on occasion of my anger, my unwillingness to accept other than (fair) criticism of job performance, largely prevented finding a White mentor during my brief (6-year) stint as a (lawyer) employee. No kissing of White bosses’ rings for me! Although I am not really a tough guy, I am acquainted with and emotionally capable of violence. (I’ve shot and killed animals.) Anti-gun marches notwithstanding—Liberal naiveté in my view, as we are a violent country—, now that I’m ubering and can no longer run, I’m thinking of getting a small handgun.

I received an “F” on my first frosh English effort. It was red-marked, “This is half a paper!” Perceiving my perplexity (I was confused, but not overly distressed), and not without exacting some acknowledgment of his superiority in this regard and exhibiting smug satisfaction, my Choatie (Polish) roommate said, “Give me that. I’ll tell you what you did wrong,” and snatched the paper from my hand. My reaction was not to shrink, sulk, feel “triggered” or less. Rather, saying nothing, I accepted, welcomed his help. He was in an advanced English class. I knew he understood the game better than I. My attitude was, “Sure, White boy. Do your thing! Happy to have your help… Mothahfuckah!”

A bit more on public school, West Coast

It is likely that my high school—oldest, most venerable in LA, touting among alums Ray Bradbury, Mary Foy, Dustin Hoffman, other celebrities, including that Johnny Cochran—imparted pride/confidence equaling that instilled by any private school.

Being from the West Coast, especially SoCal, was doubtless also a buoying, countervailing influence to possible East Coast, Yale, private school intimidation. I’d moved to LA at 13. Although I always planned to return east for college (recall my walk around the H yard at 9), I’d adopted typical West Coast disdain toward things Eastern. (Did the East have the weather, the beaches, as great-looking women?) HS classmates couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to leave California for college.  

So confident was I in the superiority of SoCal athletics, despite having been a mere JV player and not coming out for football senior year, given that our powerful HS team had won the city title over 56 others, I had the notion of playing Yale varsity football.*

* A notion I was quickly disabused of. Near 100 gathered for the freshman football meeting. When many—Brian, Calvin, Rich, JP, etc.—began writing furiously when asked to list city, county, state, all-America honors, I immediately got up, left, went out for crew. Chuckling at my naiveté.

And something else

I’ve remarked on what I think was the advantage of acknowledging/accepting that many Yale classmates were probably smarter than me. I’ve noted not being smartest in the class in HS or JHS. However, I was confident I was smart enough. Which brings me to a point I think needs making about the Yale experience.

Yale competitiveness factor

I’ve not before or since encountered so intensely competitive an atmosphere as I experienced fall 1969. Not at Yale Law, Oxford, an office of 300+ Brooklyn prosecutors. Youth was perhaps a factor, and virginity.* And single-sex monasticism. (Highly unusual to public schoolers.) And I loved it! (Competitiveness, not virginity or single sex.) And I’m sure many didn’t, were overwhelmed, were perhaps dinged and somewhat diminished.

* Most of us, your scribe included, seemed to be virgins. It exerted a pressure.

Not that most of us weren’t highly competitive. Of course we were. Public schoolers, however, were accustomed to more easily attained primacy.* The challenge at Wherever HS (by academics, classmates) didn’t equal what now was faced. 1,000 alphas were suddenly thrust to the bottom of a barrel of frighteningly able crabs. All now frantically clawed to re-establish primacy. I’m sure each of us thought we wanted to compete with the very best at the very best college. How many, however, were really ready for what that implied?

* Private schoolers likely came to Yale with a peer contingent. As the last, I think, “all-rounder” Yale class, sports and class leadership were typically in the primacy mix, along with academics.

I recall, early on, an eager, get-to-know-you gathering in someone’s room on my Bingham dorm floor. “Where’re you from?” led quickly to “How many were class or student body president?” Nine of eleven hands shot up.* According to my HS P buddy, “over 100 high school football captains” were in his class. Competitiveness was overt, subtle, omnipresent. My Choatie roommate (Polish one again) spent ten minutes carefully instructing me in the correct enunciation of “d-o-g.” Yes!**

* My hand didn’t go up. I lost the student body presidency to the basketball team captain by so close a margin in a school of 3,000+, that two homerooms had to be recounted.

** And I patiently listened. Not sure about d-o-g, but I did need corrections. (E.g., “melk” for milk, because that’s how my southern momma pronounced it.) He came close to an ass whupping.

And I loved and was fired by the competitiveness. On the front page Yale Daily News photo, day after the Bladder Ball was released on Old Campus, I’m the one grasping, momentarily controlling the ball. Perfect!

In this hothouse of competitiveness many made a show of cool—my roommates for example. In time, however, for many deflation likely occurred. At every turn—academics, athletics, art, music—one met one’s betters. I’ve encountered many YHP graduates over the years. Most are successful by any conventional measure. Yet some seem in some wise dissatisfied. They apparently didn’t measure up to what they thought Yale expected. They had imbibed outward confidence, a smooth polish from the four-year Yale undergrad crucible. However, it seemed Yale and the Yale experience remained bigger than they.*

* Yale is, of course bigger. (Likewise Yale Law, Oxford, the organization you may work in, for, or run.) However, I’ve never felt Yale or other was bigger in a way that diminished my self-importance.

Perhaps because I was scarred and hardened (by my father’s death, racism, family dysfunction), I could be scathed, but not, ultimately, fazed. As roommates would readily attest, I’m sure, I was somewhat a psychological mess. However, I’d emerged from trials with ambition and a fair measure of confidence intact.* All—Yale, etc.—was now gravy.

* In this wise, arrogantly perhaps, I liken myself to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—both survivors via intelligence, guile, optimism of problematic backgrounds.** Perhaps the deal is where one begins, how far one expects to go. I’d gotten and I have gone farther than I expected.

** No. Did not become POTUS or a F-500 CEO. I admit Bill’s election caused a “Am I lagging?” moment. However, my rationalization powers are considerable. I’m good where I’ve been and am.

Many succumb to the Yale pressure cooker. A few drop out. Others transfer. Some have nervous breakdowns. One or two… (I’d posit one or two freshman suicides each year is a price Ivy campuses anticipate.) Many, I’m sure, just recalibrate, become resigned to the 4-year grind, embrace the promising future ahead. But mightn’t they have been better off elsewhere—State U. honors program, Amherst, Williams, Duke? Yale does not empower all. Certainly not equally. Perhaps that is understood and intended by Yale powers that be.*

* Those Yale empowers are very empowered. Decades ago in printed letter-to-Time-Mag., I noted this difference between Yale and Stanford respecting who runs the country—Stanford=“they;” Yale= “we.” No accident those imbibing the water of Yale College and Law feel called to run for high office.

“Successful at Yale”

Academic progress strengthened and emboldened me. I did not grow up with the sense of possibility Whites with similar (and lesser) backgrounds take for granted.* However, amid 60’s turmoil, greater opportunity for Blacks emerged. Although I am not a big fan of affirmative action, for the first time being Black sometimes carried advantage.

* Employment with corporations, even local (White-run/owned) banks and businesses, elective office, becoming cop or dogcatcher… Such were not aspirations discussed/contemplated in Negro households. Higher aspiration implied professions, businesses catering to precincts of color.

I walked into Yale Law School junior year and inquired what admittance might require. In the run-up to the LSAT on a sunny Dartmouth weekend Saturday, I feverishly reviewed old tests in Barron’s guides. More than half our class seemed present in Strathcona Hall, and I was wired. I would encounter an exercise, visualize a similar practice one.*

* A series of pie-chart-type questions, for example. It would be the same when I sat successfully for the NY bar exam. I’d look up and see bar review pages with necessary information.

If not highest, my 750 of a possible 800 was among the highest scores among Sillimanites taking the LSAT.* It would be one of the highest scores in my entering Yale Law class.** (“Hunh!” Maybe I was smarter than I thought. What else was possible?) Confidence rose. Having embraced Black Power, I took to wearing a ¾ length black leather jacket in solidarity with Black Panthers. I enjoyed the sense of Whites being put on the defensive.

* Late classmate and fellow Salamander, Leonard “Len” Hill, from LA same as me (another public schooler buoyed by Yale), pointedly asked my score. I savored his stunned reaction.

** A chart anonymously plotted LSATs/GPA of class members.

Manning Linonia and Brothers graduate reading room desk in Sterling was my work-study job junior/senior year. It was easy. I could do homework. When grad students checked out books and announced their school, I’d say dismissively while completing the check-out form, “Grad!”* My senior co-worker was Egyptian. Every evening just past ten he’d say he had to go out, “Did I mind?”—“No!” I never queried where he was going. Didn’t care.

* Yale at the time, I felt, imbued undergraduates with a sense of being special, preferred.

I’d encountered someone in the Scholar of the House program. Seemed a sweet senior gig. Pursue an independent project of one’s creation; take regular classes or not. (Not one course required!) Meet occasionally with (15) fellow scholars to share what you were doing.* If your project didn’t win distinguished honors, you still got an honors grade. In fact, ten honors credits!** (What?!) All that had to happen was to be selected, and I had a project in mind. I’d begun to think about one day being a writer.

* Every three weeks in Timothy Dwight—dinner, often a guest speaker.*** One or two discussed a project—a movie, poetry, etc. HMU did an art history project and made a significant discovery.****  

** 10 honors, plus soph./jr. honors grades (and a frosh A equivalent), earned not only cum laude at graduation, I was two A’s short of magna. CL was deserved. I’d have felt (slight) guilt about MCL.

*** George Bush senior, then congressman/Chubb fellow, was a guest. He was so-o very impressed with us. I recall thinking—I surely did—“What an a-hole!” Oh, I was indeed becoming arrogant.

**** Eventually an MD, HMU researched Michelangelo in Italy. He discovered that a commissioned pietà sold by shrewd businessman Michelangelo to two different churches—statue of the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ in her lap or arms—, positioned at eye level, was intended to be viewed from below. (At the other church it would have been positioned to be viewed from below.)

My proposed project was a novel, tentatively entitled (and still as it molders unfinished in a file cabinet), Just in Passing. I would describe, compare, contrast lives of a Black HS friend who sang opera and played football,* my White HS friend at P (longtime top litigator for major law firm), and myself, mixed-racial, betwixt/between the two. It was irresistible to S of H selectors. They were impressed by my grade trajectory. I was in.

* Although 3rd string on our varsity (We were very good!), he earned little all-America honors at Occidental College and was drafted in the 4th round by the SF 49ers. (The NFL didn’t work out.)

Months, meanwhile, went by. My L & B co-worker, Muhammad, left each weekday evening, me not caring. In spring ’68 he pointedly asked, “Don’t you wonder where I go?”

On April 4 Martin Luther King was shot. I heard this about 8 pm. I was more a Malcolm/Stokely fan. However, MLK was surely a hero. Now some White guy had killed him.

Angry, deciding business-as-usual in L & B reading room was absurd, without consulting anyone I announced MLK had been killed and ordered everyone (all then White) out of the reading room. (“OUT! OUT!”) After that, Muhammad, all along member of the (only) senior society I would be invited to join, began asking questions. “Scholar of the House? —Very good.” “You work with urban New Haven youth?—Excellent!”*

* I’d learn that my election required declinations by more visible Black classmates. [Ty, CH, RW!]

No surprise, I was admitted to the (3) law schools I applied to—Y, H, U. Chicago. “No” to H Law was especially sweet. As noted, the threat of Vietnam had begun to fade.*

* As a delay and insurance, I’d secured appointment to Naval Officer Candidate School. Once safe, I wangled out via a loophole for the eldest of large families. (Already lawyering!) In family defense, if not my own, I’ll note that four younger brothers would serve in the military. (After the Vietnam war.)

If any are still on board, what remains (conclusion of “successful at Yale”) is how I came to secure a final bauble.

Winning a Rhodes

Together with grad students from Yale Forestry, English, Law (all White), fall 1969 I rented a house on the beach in Milford and started Yale Law. Which was immediately interesting. As applicant ability to dodge the draft had been underestimated, at 232 we were the largest entering class by far in YL history.* Fresh off a Time magazine cover for her Wellesley anti-war speech, Hillary Rodham was a classmate. As predicting future prominent leaders is what YHP are all about, rabble-rouser college campus activist types abounded in my class.** Minutes into a smug orientation delivered by a 3rd year, a menacing voice erupted behind me. (Perhaps Walter Beach—Black, onetime Cleveland Browns cornerback.) “If you don’t put some substance in that bullshit, I’m gonna toss you off the stage!” Well!

* Typical Yale Law class size is 175-185.

** Returning from Oxford three years later, college backgrounds in mountain climbing, baking, needlepoint, and the like seemed favored. Lesson apparently learned, Yale Law was quiescent.

I’d wearied of academia. The S of H gig had been a reprieve. Fortuitously (happily), my first semester Yale Law instituted pass-fail first-term grading. I studied a bit, watched lots of television, spent hours yakking politics. The political atmosphere was feverish.*

* Opposition to appointment of Robert Bork to the Supremes was in full swing. A Black Panther was on trial in NH. (Black) classmate Eric Gray, today a 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Chicago, his mother a NC cleaning lady, was put on trial in the law school for cursing a professor. Eugene Rivers, merely hanging out at Yale, now prominent Boston minister and activist, was a close friend.

Bored with pompous, tedious law school instruction, no longer constrained by Vietnam worries, I sought an out. How could I put off what-to-do-with-my-life, yet not burn bridges? I’ll note that at cross-fertilization-approach-to-legal-education, number-one-ranked Yale Law, I was still working on my S of H novel and getting course credit for it.*

* Meeting with advisor from senior year, author John Hersey, Master of Davenport. (Really?! Blacks and others today cannot handle “master?”… One should expunge aspiration to be masterful, to become masters of something? Hypersensitive SNOWFLAKES!)

 I’ll note I’ve fashioned a successful career exploiting ineptitude of ALL (!!) law school instruction.  

I knew about Rhodes scholarships. A Black (then Negro) LA lawyer had been touted for winning one when I was in high school.* A Black HS classmate won a Rhodes the previous year.** Given straight-honors grades senior year, “creative literature” S of H major on my résumé, my impressive grade trajectory, maybe I could win a Rhodes!***  As noted, it was a heady times for Blacks. I felt I sure,y might work my way through a thicket of progressive White males eager to be “down with the Black man.” It was worth a shot.

* J. Stanley Sanders from Watts.

** Harold Griffin (also originally from Watts). An indifferent student in HS, Hal became an all-America defensive end at UCLA. While ill in hospital, mentored by a former RS football booster, H discovered academic aptitude and began getting A’s. Two RS’s from one HS class!

*** Former RSs on the law faculty to whom I was referred for advice deemed my aspiration improbable. However, I was no longer much mindful of counsel beyond my own.

I began working on an application. My quest presumably was approved by a Yale Poohbah.* No less than author/professor Robert Penn Warren was assigned to supervise the critical essay component.** My do-gooder, I-plan-to-save-the-world substance was on point. I made it into the state personal interview round—in Minnesota, not California!***

* Colleges do an initial candidate screening. Many actively prep candidates. Not Yale at that time.

** He red-marked my initial draft ruthlessly. (Dang! Still much to learn since the “half a paper” was grabbed by my Choatie roommate early freshman year.)

*** The state interview round is (duh-h!) less competitive in less populous states. MN, where my family had moved, was then a state where Blacks were so few as to be a novelty. May still be.

Bearded, suffering from fever and a cold,* I impressed among 12 state finalists, and was ushered with one other on to the final Midwest region competition in St. Louis.**

* A useful distraction. Provided an excuse in the event I lost that calmed me.  

** 8 regions then, each selecting 4 scholars. (32 per year from the US; 38 yearly from other countries then, more now.) Compensating somewhat for population disparity, regions differ in number of competing states represented. Midwest region at the time encompassed 8 or 10 states.

At a cocktail party the night before formal interviews,* Rhodes selectors—former scholars—mingle with and size up candidates, posing such questions as, “What do you think of Keynesian economics?” (Bob and weave!) I avoided committing for or against the Vietnam War. (The rebuffed Navy OCS appointment wasn’t known.) I deftly evaded a pointed (irrelevant) question about Richard Wright’s Native Son, primary template of my S of H project. I’d never actually read the novel through. Blah-blah, smile, smile. Nod, repeat.

* Numerous wine and cheese gatherings during Yale years now proved a plus!

Next day, I was one of the last interviewed. It was afternoon when I took a seat at one end of a long, polished wood table in a large, otherwise it seemed empty room. Sun streamed from, perhaps, clerestory windows high up, bathing the room, and was somewhat in my eyes. Facing the 15-20 inquisitors lining both sides of the table—all male, White, possessed of, presumably versed in my application particulars—, despite feeling better health-wise, the interview was not going well. We had arrived at an uncomfortable pause. I was saying nothing, they were saying nothing. The jig seemed up. Perhaps someone from the evening before had seen through my BS and condemned me to his fellows.

Embarrassing seconds ticked past. Finally, an act of mercy, someone down on the left thumbing my file queried, “What’s Tang Cup all about?”* Whereupon one of my all-time best ad-libs was forthcoming. A pitcher of water and modest-sized glass had been left on the table for me. I filled the glass to the brim, positioned it on the edge of the table, pushed back to give myself room.

* Important lesson. Toss odd hobbies/tidbits/details into résumés/curricula vitae. Ya never know.

As some may know, “Tang Cup” at Yale is a beer-drinking-for-speed competition. In our day the competition was May 1 (or nearest Saturday?), and was between only Silliman and Timothy Dwight Colleges. I gather this is today a popular, Yale-wide activity.

We had a 10-member Silliman team. (Perhaps one alternate.) Most of us were below then 21 legal drinking age.  We sometimes practiced with water. However, as acclimation to fizz is necessary, usually beer. Wednesday evenings, beginning in March, 6-7 weeks in advance of the competition, a keg of beer was provided by none other than the college master, at the time law professor, Elias Clark. (Oops! Sorry!) Following 8-10 practice rounds with 8-ounce brim-filled glasses, nights following a practice were often a blank.

Tang Cup is about speed, not consumption. Eight-ounce glasses, each brimful of beer (no foam head), are arranged along a table, two in front of each team member—20 total. The idea is to down the beer as fast as possible with minimum spillage. First of ten drains his first glass. Moment his (hopefully empty) glass hits the table, the next downs his first, and so on to the tenth member and “anchor” man. Downing one glass, immediately the second as anchor is no small feat. Silliman anchor my two years on the team (jr./sr.) was baleful, ski team and defensive football captain classmate, MB (“Bous”).  

The contest continues from anchor back to the first. Time penalties are assessed for excess spillage, beer left in glasses. Beer running from nostrils (me always) incurs no penalty. Competition predictably occurs amid fanfare and hooting (more beer drinking to follow). TD’s team one year arrived in tuxedos (very cool), then stripped to underwear. Episode of legend is the occasion when, realizing beer remained in his glass, a competitor—TD again. Tsk!—brought his glass down with such force as to break it, thereby disguising the foul and avoiding penalty.

To maximize an open throat and liquid disappearing quickly (and not coming back up), one positions oneself literally underneath the table, head tilted back such that mouth is but an open, level hole next to the table edge. Acceptable time for consuming eight ounces is in the .7-.9 second range. Downing two glasses in two seconds by the anchor is excellent.

Giving an abbreviated version of the foregoing to a heretofore disinterested audience, not awaiting questions, chair already out of the way and announcing, “Here! I’ll demonstrate!,” I abruptly near disappeared beneath the table. (To any beyond those immediately left and right, only beard and wide open mouth were now visible. Also my right hand clutching the glass of water at table’s edge.) Quick, I tossed the liquid down the hole, near instantly replacing the glass on the table—empty—with a resounding pop. As water goes down more easily than beer, it was child’s play.

Water streaming from my nostrils into my beard, I stood triumphantly. And detected rapt attention, interest, amusement approaching delight. None, likely, had ever seen such a thing. Doubtless, a dramatic departure from daylong, humdrum Q and A. And from a Yale man! Some seemed barely able to refrain from applause.

Cecil Rhodes was, of course, a swashbuckling, ruthless, White supremacist.* He believed bringing future leaders from English-speaking nations (and Germany) to Oxford would advance like thinking. He envisioned hegemony of English-speaking nations.** Defining ideal candidates for his purpose, in his will establishing the scholarships Rhodes recognized demonstrated academic acumen. However, lest nerds descend on Oxford, he specified “a manly appreciation for sport.” His aim was “someone for the world’s fight.”

* Predictably, as Calhoun was at Yale, Rhodes is subject to efforts in South Africa, Oxford, etc. to extinguish his presence. (I’ll note detractors among RSs have not offered to return scholarships!)

** Germany was initially allotted two scholars per year. (Discontinued during the World Wars.) Scholarships to China and other nations have recently been added.

I was not a varsity athlete. Most Rhodes scholars aren’t. But selectors had to be thinking, “Here’s more than scholar/intellectual. Here’s a manly sort, perhaps a fighter.”*

* Proudly (me prideful?), I’ll suggest they weren’t wrong. Apartheid South Africa concerned me. I noticed one evening the Rhodes Will designated private, Whites-only schools as sources of South Africa’s four yearly RS recipients. Engaging two fellow scholar/friends as lieutenants, I initiated a petition campaign among Rhodes scholars—joined soon by Oxford dons and others—to divest those schools and open the scholarship to non-Whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). As a result of the campaign, over two years later (1973) via Act of Parliament, the Rhodes Will was changed to accord with this aim. There have been numerous Black South African and Zimbabwean RSs. The action paved the way for opening the scholarship to women in 1977.

Okay. Much appreciation and thanks for the attention span of any persevering to this (not quite penultimate) paragraph. Recalling and composing proved enjoyable. Hopefully, positive memories of yours of our time at Yale College have been jostled. I hope I have addressed (doubtless more than anticipated), descriptive aspects of the title of this piece. We may judge, I think, that “success” of the sort explored herein (not all that important in the long haul, as we now know), requires some merit, but also luck, and often cunning artifice and strategy. And a certain doggedness and self-confidence. Which Yale may or may not provide and/or augment.

I’ve indicated some names (without securing permission). I hope that’s okay.

Boola, boola! Be well. Travel safely to and from New Haven.