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By Root 1245 0

in a trap, psychologically speaking. He has established a reputation in the family for thoughtlessness, sloppiness, and inefficiency, and he feels entirely at home in the role.” Jack had his own deep insights into his psyche. He understood the psychological bounds that constricted him, but the truth did not set him free. “A good deal of his trouble is due to comparison with an older brother,” the psychologist noted. “He remarked, ‘My brother is the efficient one in the family. I am the boy that doesn’t get things done. If my brother were not so efficient, it would be easier for me to be efficient. He does it so much better than I do.’ Jack is apparently avoiding comparison and withdraws from the race, so to speak, in order to convince himself that he is not trying.”

Rose, a woman of remorseless optimism, wrote in her memoirs that “this silly episode of the Muckers may well have been a turning point in his life.” He did pull up his grades a bit those last months, but for all four years of high school at Choate he did not receive one honor grade and finished 65th in a class of 110. His SAT scores for college entrance were respectable (verbal 627, math 467), but hardly the marks of a brilliant young man. Choate’s “General Estimate” of Jack for his Princeton application was both fair and devastating. “Jack has rather superior mental ability without the deep interest in his studies or the mature viewpoint that demands of him his best effort all the time. He can be relied upon to do enough to pass.”

One of the first occasions in which the “new” Jack made his appearance was during the very Spring Festivities that the Muckers had planned to disrupt. Each year the evening began with a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan. It might have been expected that a much-chastened Jack would have been in the front row, applauding vigorously. But Jack and his friends could not abide sitting there. Instead, Jack and his date, Olive Cawley, and Lem and his date, Ruth “Pussy” Walker, drove off with Porter “Pete” Caesar, who had graduated the year before and was now back from Princeton, driving a spiffy roadster. Leaving Choate that evening would have been grounds for expulsion by itself, but the crime was dramatically escalated when they stopped at a roadhouse for some beer.

On their drive back to campus, the group realized it was being followed by proctors whose mandate was to catch such miscreants as Lem and Jack. Caesar sped away, roaring out into the countryside, trying desperately to shake off their tormentors. He turned into a farmyard and cut off the headlights, while Jack, Lem, and Olive ran to secrete themselves in the barn. Jack and Lem in tails and Olive in a ball gown hunkered there among hay and animals. When the proctors arrived, they found Caesar and Lem’s date making out in the car. The proctors had seen more figures in the car than these supposed smoochers, and they sat in their car waiting. Caesar tore out of the farmyard and led the Choate teachers on a new chase, finally shaking them.

“Finally, Pete Caesar came back and drove into the barnyard very fast; no other car was in sight,” Lem recalled. “Olive rushed out to the car and lay on the floor at Pussy’s feet with a coat thrown over her. I dashed to the back—Pete opened the trunk and I jumped in. He closed me in. We didn’t dare call for Jack—so we left him behind…. It was only a mile to the school…. He [Caesar] delivered Olive and myself to the dance and we danced into the crowd together despite the fact that Olive had lost one heel from her shoe and looked a pretty mess. About a half an hour later, I’m glad to report, Jack showed up.”

Jack had one other parting gift for dear old Choate. As one of the last acts of the year, the seniors voted for yearbook honors in a number of categories. The highest honor of all was “Most Likely to Succeed,” given inevitably to a serious, studious young man who exemplified all the Choate ideals. Jack was as likely to win in that category as to be asked to give a sermon in chapel. Jack’s friends, however, waged a vigorous, whimsical campaign,