A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [12]
Suddenly our driver shouted, “Here we are!” On the right, he pointed to the boys’ school; on the left, the girls’ school. As we passed the library, we came upon the main green at the center of the campus. I had never seen so much private lawn in my life. The whole place breathed of tradition and privilege. Surrounding the perfectly manicured grass were stately brick buildings with clean white trim, Doric and Ionic columns, and ivy creepers. The huge elm and maple trees, which seemed to have been there since Creation, added a sense of entrenchment and stability. The structures themselves—Forbes House, Wigglesworth Hall, Straus Library—taught me an early lesson: The graduates never really die; they just turn into buildings.
At the far end of the lawn, on its own grassy knoll, was Hallowell House, my new residence. Though it had a Georgian Colonial exterior like the rest of the campus, it was Milton’s newest dormitory, built in the 1960s, and lacked the hoary charm of the older halls, with their dark wood paneling and window seats. It did have “alcoves” in common with the other boys’ dorms, the warren of spaces on the top floors where the eighth- and ninth-graders lived. Arriving shortly before dinner, I was starving. The other boys had left for the dining hall already, but I wasn’t sure what to do or say, and I didn’t want to walk in last. So I stayed in my quarters. It was just as well. I had time to explore.
My room itself was spartan. Instead of walls, fixed dividers that did not reach the ceiling separated uniform spaces. There was a curtain in place of a door. Each alcove had a single twin bed made of steel with a hard mattress; a plain but sturdy wooden bureau, desk, and chair; and a shallow, built-in closet with another curtain across the front. The floor was cold, bare, and institutional. I didn’t have enough clothes to fill the bureau. The bathroom with its common shower was down the hall.
I had a single window, just like at home. But instead of an air shaft and the view of our neighbor’s window a few feet away, this window opened onto that same lush park in the center of the campus. I could see nearly a half mile of green, gold, and red. I couldn’t believe I had my own bed and no longer had to sleep on the floor every third night. Most of the kids complained about their room, as they were used to more lavish accommodations. I thought it was sublime.
On that first day of class the next morning, I just wanted to fit in, but it wasn’t easy. The dress code required that boys wear jackets and ties to class. When the clothing list had arrived at home the summer before, my grandparents splurged on a new jacket for me. But a jacket in our world was a Windbreaker, so when the other boys at Milton were donning their blue blazers and tweed coats, I emerged in my dark blue Windbreaker, off the rack from Sears.
Clearly, I had a lot to learn, starting with the actual learning. I was used to being the prized pupil, but now I was intellectually adrift. In my freshman English class, it seemed that the other boys had already read many of the classics and could cross-reference other texts that I had barely even heard of. I was intimidated and embarrassed. I also read more slowly and was constantly behind. I received my first C, on a short writing assignment, and was demoralized.
I was even more astray in my foreign language class. When I was told that it was Latin, I smiled and thought, “You have got to be kidding.” Our teacher, a kindly man with thin white hair, translucent skin, and a dry voice that made you want to take a drink of water, was widely presumed by his students to have been around when Latin