Why I didn't go to Harvard

This title of this post looks a lot like sour grapes. That's not my intent. I've written most of my life and recognize full well my limitations. You'll find no fiction in my writings. I was a stenographer for my son, and had the great pleasure and immense privilege of data entering his creative writing projects during his junior high school days. His high school career was abbreviated, so I was unable to follow up. Adam wrote with great imagination, cosmic stories about good and evil. I could do no more than report factual based incidents, albeit with large doses of editorial commentary which stroked my ego -- the self image of an insightful, wise commentator.

A number of academic, athletic and artistic awards came my way in the high school years after we moved from Streator, Illinois in the heart of corn county to Barrington, Illinois, a village whose residents frequently have an over-inflated opinion of themselves and their accomplishments. Many of them buy into the Prosperity Gospel -- when you are prosperous it is because God has bestowed His favors upon you. Most of them are republicans. Many of them are racist, although they'd condemn you for calling them on it. I'd rather spend my time with an overt, acknowledged racist than a subtle closet white supremacist.

One of the High School guidance counselors recommended me to interview with a Harvard alum, Blaine Kilpatrick, I think in the fall of 1968, my senior year. An honor roll student, allegedly captain of the golf team (so it says in my senior yearbook; odd, I can't remember that -- perhaps Jill Johnson, an editor whom I dated inflated my resume) and the Illinois Boys State representative to Springfield. I was also active in performing arts. Barrington High School produced a number of successful actors, dancers, writers and musicians. My brother John's career highlight was performing on Broadyway with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Colleen Zenk, whom John and I both dated in our high school days, has starred as Barbara in As the World Turns for 30 years. Claire Bataille was the lead dancer of the Hubbard Street Dance Troup.

None of the Harvard alum interview remains remembered except for this exchange:

BK: So, Mark, name the three most influential books you've read this past year.

MG: (offering up a prayer of relief, for indeed I HAD read three books in the past year, but only three -- I never considered that high school English assignments might qualify under the heading of "reading") The Essential Lenny Bruce, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, and The Man Who Cried I am lilted lake-lily like off my tongue.

BK: Mark, you've succeeded in doing something no one else has ever done before.

MG: What is that, Mr. Kilpatrick.

BK: You've named three books I've never heard of. Can you tell me a little bit about them.

MG: Lenny Bruce was a social commentator whose criticisms so angered the Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Chicago that they were able to close down his night club act on obscenity charges. The obscenity charges followed him across the country. He died of a drug overdose. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is his autobiography. The Essential Lenny Bruce is a biography.

The Man Who Cried I Am is a mystery which tells the story of a black CIA operative, dying of cancer in Europe, who uncovers a plan by the U.S. government to inter the entire black population of America to some island off the East coast to thwart and forestall an uprising of the black community, led by militants.

BK: So it would be fair to say that you're interested in issues of social justice?

MG: That would be fair sir.

post script: on the basis of the interview, I was advised not to waste the time of the Harvard admissions board filling out a paper application. I had flunked my interview.

post post script: When I returned home and told my mother the story, she would assume (she told me this many years later) that what I REALLY meant was that I didn't want to go to Harvard.

For reasons of my own self-image, and therefore my own pride and vanity, I prefer to think that I am simply, and perhaps naively honest.

Such honesty has served me well, for example, back in the days of my teen-aged rebellious period, which for me occurred between the ages 33 and 39, I had to appear in court for a bond hearing on a criminal trespass to motor vehicle charge. At the time I also had an assault and possession of a stolen motor vehicle charges pending. I arrived early enough to watch Judge Hoffenburg dispatch justice with efficiency, compassion and humor.

My case was called, and as the particulars were being read, I interrupted. "Excuse me, your Honor, but I'm guilty."

"I don't think you understand young man, this is just a bond hearing."

"Oh, I understand perfectly well your Honor, and I am as guilty now as I will be when this case comes to court."

The judge thought for a second, and continued, "You could be a very clever young man," he said. "Let's see what the State's Attorney says about this."

After perhaps an eight minute conference with some of the local police officers, the decision was made to find me guilty, fine me $35, and have me contact my probation officer.

The State's Attorney was ecstatic. He got a conviction and this case was cleared from the docket. I had long before come to realize, that when one gets this far into the bowels of the criminal justice system, it's all about form, not about substance. The system is a meat grinder. It will grind you up and spit you out. The objective of the petty criminal is to stay under the radar as best as is possible, trying to minimize long term damage.

But, I had done my homework. I had watched a good man deal compassionately with human beings who found themselves in a very stressful situation. I also knew, that as a cute, white, college-educated suburban male only recently departed from the white collar world, I would appear to be one capable of "rehabilitation."

Little did they know, that I was, even by then, the antidote to all the things held so near and dear by the ruling classes.

Traitor

I am a traitor
A traitor to my race
A traitor to my creed
A traitor to my gender
A traitor to my former corporate standing
A traitor to my former socio-economic status
A traitor to my cultural inculcations.


In my treachery to these, the circumstances
of the random and improbable mating of sperm and egg,
of the accident of my birth, I am empowered,
and have become the most dangerous of all creatures.
An anarchist, a terrorist in their midst,
cloaked like and conversant in the language nuances of
those who cleave unto their unfounded beliefs:


I am the creature which haunts their nightmares,
I am the born again human who has looked into the mirror
Seen his true self and been lain low by the painful realization
that my life's choices had corrupted me, and made me and turned me
upon my genuine self -- I had let creature comforts numb me
from what the universe first called me to be and called me to do.
I have rejected all that for which they stand; all that they worship.


Their unfounded beliefs and idols of worship revolve around these matters:


In the superiority of the white race over all other races,
In the superiority of Christianity over all other faith traditions,
In the superiority of men over women,
In the wisdom of the corporate elites over the working class masses.
In the superiority of their western "culture and civilization" to
all other cultures and civilizations.

They self-justify these beliefs by their material "blessings"
that have accrued unto them resulting from the circumstances of
the random and improbable mating of sperm and egg,
of the accident of their births, and,
at the upper echelons, by their celebrity.

The gospel of prosperity and the cult of personality
are sufficient self-justifications.
This gospel and this cult I reject out of hand,
and will oppose to my last breath.