I am not sure whether what follows fits within the “ludicrous” or “embarrassing” category… you be the judge.
Every Spring there was a weekend set aside where you invited your sweetheart-of-the-moment to New Haven to share the sun-filled atmosphere of Yale life. This weekend had a special name… which I now forget.
In any event, for this Spring weekend in my freshman year I did not have a sweetheart-of-the-moment. Which meant that I found myself bereft of female companionship in my fourth floor room in Welch Hall which I shared with Bob Mallano and feeling a little sorry for myself.
As I looked out my window at the happy throng of young people below me on High Street, I spied a fabulous Panama hat resting on the head of a gentleman at the curbside. It did not take long to grab a large plastic water bottle, head to the 4th floor bathroom, and fill the bottle to the brim. The contents of the bottle were soon descending in an arc to the fabulous hat where they scored a direct and satisfying hit.
I learned, quite soon thereafter, that the occupant of this wonderful hat was the Chief of the Yale Campus Police. It did not take him long to deploy his lieutenants to the various entries of Welch Hall, where one of them found me, not quite cleverly enough, standing of the toilet seat of one of the bathroom stalls.
What followed was something of a blur, but I do remember a prompt visit to the Freshman Dean, and, under the circumstances, a lenient one week “rustication” away from the Yale campus.
Did I learn anything from this incipient life of crime? At one level, yes: Always have an “Exit Plan” even when acting impulsively, and I had had none.
But in a more fundamental way, it IS wise to have a considered “Exit Plan,” whether we are a President dealing with foreign policy matters of the utmost importance, or at the personal level where the stages of evolution in our own lives improve with a willingness to approach life with flexibility and imagination.