All of the old media seem to be focused on events that
transpired 50 years ago. We have seen
reruns of the first Julia Child TV show, the French Chef; we have read about
and seen countless photos of John Glenn orbiting the earth; and, of course,
there are the Beatles! They are everywhere just as they were 50 years ago: TV,
radio, newspapers, magazines, and every time you turn around there is a new
angle, a rehashed story, and a previously unpublished photo. Everyone seems to be happy to talk about
where they were and what they were doing when the Beatles first appeared on the
Ed Sullivan Show - everyone that is, except me.
I was miserable!
I had been eighteen for almost two months, I was starting my
second semester at the University of Connecticut, and most importantly, I was
starving. Starving as in not knowing
where my next meal was going to come from or how I would find the money to buy
something to eat. This part of my college
experience caught me rather by surprise and it was not a happy one.
When I graduated from Norwalk High School in June of 1963, I
had been awarded a three hundred dollar scholarship. It was based on need but I always said it was
for perfect attendance. Three hundred
dollars went a long way in 1963, especially if you were attending one of the
state schools in Connecticut. I remember
talking with a counselor about how far I could stretch three hundred dollars
and was told that it would be enough for my first full year of study, including
room and board and books and school supplies.
I was thrilled since I didn’t have that much saved from my old paper
route or the money that I had made working for Sammy Savell’s Poultry
Farm. But knowing that I would have a
whole year of not having to work and just be able read and write and attend
classes was pure bliss.
The first semester went as planned. Sure there were some unexpected glitches like
Kennedy getting killed, but for the most part I was very happy at UCONN. When I went home for Christmas things started
to deteriorate. My high school
sweetheart was no longer interested in me and I noticed a rather understated
tension between my mom and dad, which of course meant that there were money
problems. This was confirmed when I went
to my “safe deposit” box, a little metal box that the bank gave me that I kept
on a high closet shelf with the key taped to the back. I was going to get a
little bit of my savings and buy some nice gifts for the family, but what I
found were three IOUs from my dad. I
talked to him about it and he was clearly embarrassed but said he had no choice
since there was very little construction work due to poor weather. He promised that when things picked up in the
spring he would put the money back.
Surprisingly, this didn’t really upset me since it wasn’t
that first time that I had contributed to the ‘good’ of the family and I knew
how cyclical construction was, especially in the winter. Besides, there was still enough left to get
some gifts and we all made the best of the situation and had as lovely a
Christmas as we could. I returned to
UCONN feeling pretty good and eager to get back to my college routine.
I got a really lovely surprise when I got to my dorm
room. It turns out that a single had
opened up and my roommate had been on the waiting list and got it. That meant
that I had the entire room to myself, which was pretty darn amazing. My glee was short lived. I went down to the cafeteria in the dorm my
first night back and when I showed my ID to the cashier, she said that it was
no longer valid. I wasn’t at all sure
what that really meant but there was nothing I could do on a Sunday night so I
found enough ‘travel’ money left over from the bus fare, to pay for my
dinner.
The next morning after my first two early classes, I went to
Administration and tried to get to the bottom of this. As it turned out, my three hundred dollars
did cover all of my tuition and books for the whole year and it had covered my
room and board for the first semester, but it only covered my room for the
spring semester and I needed another sixty dollars for board. Well, sixty
dollars at the time was about the same as the gross national product of Peru,
and well beyond my ability to pay. I was
told that if I didn’t want full board, I was free to pay as I go, with
cash. Those were the two options and of
course I choose the latter.
Which brings us to the Beatles. By the time they were appearing on the Ed
Sullivan Show, I had been five weeks into my new diet. I had found a way to make a little bit of
money by typing papers for my fellow students in the freshman dorm. I had taken typing in high school instead of
metal shop. (I was not and still am not very handy and besides, I was the only
boy in typing!) My Aunt Gigi had given
me a brand new Smith Corona portable typewriter for my high school graduation
and I could do a respectable fifty words a minute. While the work was inconsistent and tended to
bunch up at mid-term, I was making enough that I could eat one meal a day. The rest of the meals were taken in my “private
dining room.” I tended to eat lunch
since it was cheaper and I could pocket some bread, rolls or crackers, and then
my dinner usually consisted of a cup of bouillon. I had purchased an immersion coil and a
couple of boxes of bouillon. I would
heat the water to a boil in my cup, select my cube, and inhale the fragrant
scent of beef or chicken as I patiently waited for it to dissolve, all the time
listening to the Beatles on my little radio. I would sometimes vary my meal with the
addition of a bit of ketchup that I had taken from the cafeteria. There were
some nights when I just had hot water and ketchup and made believe it was
tomato soup, and this was six years before Midnight Cowboy.
I was ever so thankful that I had no roommate and therefore
didn’t have to tell anyone why I was sitting alone eating bouillon. Surprisingly, after about five weeks of this
I no longer felt hungry at night and it all started to become a regular part of
my life, and I thought I would be able to stick it out until the end of the
semester. That all changed in early
March.
I was down to my last fifteen cents and there was nothing on
the horizon for typing for another few days.
I was walking back from my eight o’clock class one morning, which was on
the far side of the campus. It was very
cold and there was a lot of snow on the ground.
I had decided that I would use the last of my money to buy a big bowl of
hot oatmeal that would get me through the day, real comfort food. I got to the dining room just as they were
about to close the gates of the serving area, but managed to get my oatmeal,
which came with milk, an added bonus. I
brought it back to the table; I was the only one still in the cafeteria. I took the sugar jar and covered the oatmeal
and then added the milk and stirred it all in.
Then I added even more sugar to the top to give it more crunch and
calories. I took my first bite and spit it all over the table. Some jerk had thought it would be funny to
empty the sugar jar and replace it with salt.
My entire meal was ruined and all I could do was just sit and
stare. There was no sympathy from the
cafeteria workers, all of whom were eager to go on break, and there was
certainly no refund of my money. And so I sat, feeling wave after wave of
self-pity until I realized that nothing was going to improve unless I took some
action.
I swallowed my pride and went to see my freshman
counselor. He asked if I was willing to
work part-time and I told him I would love to work part-time. Two days later, I
was hired to work in the Pomology department. I had never heard of Pomology but UCONN
started as an Agricultural College and this branch of botany was involved with
the study of fruit trees. My job was to
get to the orchards at six in the morning and remove all of the birds that had
gotten caught in the netting covering the trees. After that, it was duties as assigned for
four hours per day, seven days a week.
As they said, Fruit Trees Take No Holidays.
Within two weeks I was rolling in money, well not really - but
by comparison I was a rich man. That
summer, and every summer thereafter for years and years, I worked construction
and made more than enough money to cover everything to finish college in four
years.
And now you know why I’m not as nostalgic for the Beatles as
others of my generation might be. Every
time I have bouillon I can still hear, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. To this day I add maple syrup to my oatmeal;
never sugar.
Wm
PS: And yes, when I went home
for the summer, the IOUs were gone and the money was back, with interest!
