As a History major at Yale, I took a wonderful collection of courses. The courses were brilliant in every regard. The toughest was the History of Philosophy, which really stretched my imagination. I had difficulty keeping track of Who said What about Whom and What.
I can’t think of another department at Yale that had such brilliant minds that had dug so deeply.
I fortunately arrived at Yale knowing quite a few people because of Andover. And in Pierson I made new and lasting friends. I had a particularly fun time with the URPS – a group of hockey players who all played for the Freshman Team but couldn’t make Varsity. Yale didn’t have a JV team at the time. The fun thing about it was that we played games up and down the Connecticut coast, particularly those against Choate, Dartmouth and Amherst.
These were fun times. We got to know each other very well. Our final two games in our Senior Year were played first against the Princeton JV which we beat 3-1 and then against Harvard JV which we beat 2-1. We certainly celebrated those victories.
We had a few near misses on road trips to to Vassar and Millbrook – and a few people ended up in jail for doing damage to an Inn. The rest of us high-tailed it out of there.
One of the most memorable moments I remember is as a Freshman watching Yale Varsity Lacrosse take on Syracuse. The Center Forward for Syracuse was none other than Jim Brown. He won every face-off and scored and simply mowed down Yale’s Defense.
It was a privilege to go to Yale and to be the third member of my family to attend. And then to be succeeded by my oldest daughter and one of our grandchildren who graduated in May 2024, which I got to attend. That was very special for me. God bless the Bulldogs.