Brooklyn Prep

Sometimes you make a choice that fails. The result may be positive or negative or simply meaningless. The failure of this choice was positive, although I didn't realize it until much later.

Upon graduating from elementary school, P.S. 152, I applied for admission to Brooklyn Preparatory High School. I don't remember why, although it was probably because some friend convinced me that it was cool and small and had a good but humble football team. It was located in downtown Brooklyn, so would require a trolley-bus trip to and from every day. This didn't bother me, on the contrary I rather looked forward to it. I had to take an admission test, which didn't bother me either, because until then I had found school examinations easy. Much later I came to suspect that the teachers who prepared them feared their teaching ability would appear incompetent if many students failed, in the public schools at least.

I remember only one question on the Brooklyn Prep test — in mathematics or, rather, arithmetic — that I had a problem with. It asked to solve a half dozen square roots — numbers with a symbol that looks like a fishhook (√). I had no idea how to do that, most likely because I was playing hooky on the day we learned about square roots in P.S. 152. Just to put something, I divided all the numbers by two, knowing it was incorrect. A week or two later, I received a letter from the school informing me that I had passed the test with around 75% (I think), but because their system is competitive, I would not be admitted to the school. Just for spite I never did learn how to calculate square roots, beyond guessing, which worked for small numbers, but not for high ones. Today it's a piece of cake for computers. It was a choice that failed — apparently, but in a positive way for my future. I later (much later) discovered that Brooklyn Prep was a Catholic school run by Jesuits.

“Brooklyn Preparatory School, commonly referred to as Brooklyn Prep, was a highly selective Jesuit preparatory school founded by the Society of Jesus in 1908. The school educated generations of young men from throughout New York City and Long Island until its closure in 1972. As a Jesuit institution, Brooklyn Prep was noted for its religious values, classical roots (e.g. Latin and Greek), and dress code (ties and jackets) — all part of its goal of turning out well-rounded, educated men ... But whether a student could solve algebraic equations with unusual facility or consistently throw cross body blocks that led to touchdowns, he submitted as a prepster to an iron, relentless discipline ...” (New York Times — 1972).

Obviously, it was not my cup of tea. Furthermore, if I had studied there, I might well have become a fanatical Roman Catholic, perhaps even a priest, a bishop, even a pope instead of the Argentine Jorge Bergoglio, who calls himself Francisco. I wouldn't even have had to change my name. Now, in case you think that I, as pope, would redeem a dying medieval institution by allowing women to become priests, kicking out sexually abusive priests, throwing the myth of celibacy overboard, etc., you might be disappointed, given that I could have been successfully brainwashed by the Jesuits of Brooklyn Prep and kept things as they still are, or worse. Oh, the gods of Jesuitism don't give up so easily. They tried again at university level.

The University of Vermont

Why I went to the University of Vermont, of all places, is hard to explain, even to myself. My friend Jerry (his real name), a year or two older than me, who went there and told me how great it was and that he would get me into the best national fraternity, was certainly an influence, for I would never even have heard of it otherwise. Also, it was a time when Brooklyn College, where I should have gone, was determining admission by an examination. Perhaps I was still traumatized by having failed the entrance examination for Brooklyn Prep. To make the choice even more absurd, I applied for the college of agriculture. Why? Because I had just seen a movie with Alan Ladd about farming and combines and crooks who Alan, a courageous farmer, defeats and wins the farmer's daughter. Or maybe I just wanted to get away from home, which seems illogical though, because my parents were not at all domineering, rather the opposite. They were non-academic types, having skipped high school in favor of or need to work. If I wanted to go to the U. of Vermont, of all places, why not?

I was thoroughly miserable in the so-called city of Burlington, the frozen apple of Vermont, down the hill from the university. Compared to the big apple core of the civilized world, New York, it was Deadsville, dry as a bone. I turned eighteen in October and couldn't even get a legal beer without buying a meal to go with it. I also realized how deficient my high school education had been. As an agriculture major, I naturally had a course in chemistry, something I had not the slightest idea about, not having studied it in high school. (I am still abysmally ignorant of chemistry, by the way.) My knowledge of mathematics was sketchy, to say the least. About the only subject I liked and did well in was English literature. What made the University of Vermont bearable was football. I made the freshman team and would surely have gone on to the varsity team in a year or two, except for a blow to the side of my head. (We wore leather helmets those days.) It caused an infection in my right earlobe, eventually a cyst. Prompt medical attention might have taken care of it, but my guardian angel must have whispered into that ear, “Let it Be.” It ended my football career and, indirectly and eventually, my incipient academic career. I still have the cyst to remind me.

Then there was the restaurant in Burlington where students liked to hang out. I forget its name, so I'll call it Jane's. Jane was the Saturday night waitress. Whenever I had enough pocket money I'd walk downtown to Jane's, order a bottle of beer and a hamburger, the latter enabling me to repeat the beer order ad infinitum. One Saturday night I walked the waitress home, intending to seduce her. As it turned out she, experienced, seduced me, the novice. A few days later I was visiting a fellow football player in his dorm room. He was a bruising tackle. Above his bed, as though it were a painting, a real waitress apron was pinned. Under it the beast had written, in black crayon, “manhole cover.” I was shocked, embarrassed, angry. I left the room as soon as possible, and never returned. If I remember correctly, I didn't return to Jane's either.

In another place, a diner, I met Bill Este one night. He was a few years older than me, getting educated on his veteran's benefits. We got talking over hamburgers and beer about Dostoevsky, especially The Brothers Karamazov. Bill was surprised not only that I had heard of it, but that I had actually read it. I read a lot, thanks to the New York Public Library having a branch in Brooklyn where we lived. That branch wasn't very big, and it didn't have many books, but if you wanted something, they'd get it for you in a week from the central library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Bill and I thought ourselves to be intellectually superior, because we were probably the only students in UVM who had read Dostoevsky — or had even heard of him. Finally, after meeting a few times more with conversation and beer, we agreed that the U. of Vermont was inferior to our talents (despite my imminent failing in chemistry and mathematics). Bill had a plan, a solution. He said he had only decided to enroll in UVM because the skiing was said to be so good. Well, it was already November, and it hadn't even snowed yet. And it was bitter cold. Bill suggested that we abandon Vermont and transfer to Georgetown University in Washington DC. He knew important people there, he claimed, and he could get us both accepted. We could leave the next morning. He had a Volkswagen Beetle, which I admired almost as much as I did him. He said we could share driving and be there in a couple of days. In order to understand why I agreed to this crazy plan, you must know that I had consumed an inordinate quantity of beer and was, to be honest, drunk. Bill said he'd call for me in the lobby of my dorm at eight o'clock the next morning. “Be ready!” he ordered. The next morning, a Saturday, my roommate, a Vermont hick, shook me awake. There's a guy outside looking for you, he said.

“Let's go, Frankie,” Bill Este said. I remembered last night through the haze of a hangover and looked at him numbly.

“You coming, or not?” he said, clearly angry. I thought about what I'd tell my parents, that I just decided to take a trip to Washington DC in a VW beetle with an older guy I barely knew. I made a choice. “Er ... no, Bill, I changed my mind,” I mumbled weakly. He seemed to want to say something, but just turned on his heel and left. I never saw him again. It was a good choice. I found out later that Georgetown was and still is a Jesuit university that supplies the government with many of its most powerful politicians, as well as the Supreme Court.

The Jesuit order relied on the plantations and slave labor to sustain the clergy and to help finance the construction and the day-to-day operations of churches and schools, including Georgetown, the nation’s first Catholic institution of higher learning. [Wikipedia]

I had escaped again by the skin of my teeth. Maybe it was the proverbial last straw, in that it cut off an avenue of escape from the cold, the hillbillies, chemistry, math and, worst blow of all, the end of my football career. I went home by train on the Christmas break and proved to my eighteen-year-old-self that there's no place like home. I told my parents that I didn't want to go back to Vermont (good choice) and they just shrugged. My dad asked about all my stuff that was still up there and I said I'd just have to go back and get it. “Let's drive up there and get it,” he said. “You can drive.” I had turned eighteen in October, so the first thing I had done on arriving in Brooklyn was applying for and obtaining my driver's license — thanks to my dad, who had taught me how to drive.So, we drove up to Burlington in his Hudson Hornet. (That was before General Motors and Ford bought or forced out all the smaller competition.) I went right to my room in the dorm and told my roommate — a hick farmer, but a nice guy — that I was leaving for good and to please tell whomever it may concern that I'm gone. He stared at me with bulging eyes and open mouth while watching me pack. Finally, he asked if I wanted help, which I did, so he carried one of my two suitcases down to the car. We shook hands (boys didn't embrace those days) and that was it.

To be continued...