My First Week of Yale Awe and Shock
My greatest concern as I trudged to my command performance before the Freshman Dean was, “What will my mother say?”
Freshman Orientation Week had not been kind to me. The first blow came in the form of a handout entitled something like “Freshman Class Statistics.” My awesome freshmen brethren, it reported, had won thousands of varsity letters in secondary school and, it seemed, each had captained multiple athletic teams. In addition, it appeared that everyone — but me — had been president of his senior class or the G.O. Added to all that were the impossibly high average SAT scores. How could I possibly compete?
And then I was arrested. Our third-floor windows at 374 Wright Hall, overlooking High Street, proved too tempting. I don’t know who provided the balloons, but they were the raw material for a good-natured bombing campaign on the pedestrians below. Very shortly after its start, however, the uncannily alert campus police arrived and we were escorted to police headquarters in Phelps Hall. Did we not know our escapade was a serious violation of town-gown comity? “Your transgressions will require a hearing before the Dean.”
As I trudged toward my hearing, I wondered whether my first week at Yale would be my last. Upon entering his office, the Dean looked up sternly from his desk — but then broke into a broad smile and asked, “Did you learn your lesson?”
That I am able to repeat this story almost 70 years later, while looking forward to another Yale reunion — suggests that I did.