Category: Over My Shoulder

Keystone Events: Days One Never Forgets – Over My Shoulder

Everyone has a keystone event in their life. These events are the single most consequential event that one will never forget where they were or what they were doing when they either heard or witnessed them. Keystone events color one’s perception for years.

For me my keystone memory occurred on Friday, November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was a freshman in college.  Since then I have experienced several memorable events that I realize were the keystone event for those around me. In 1986 I was making a sales call at a school when the Challenger explosion occurred. The students were watching on a big tv in the cafeteria. I am sure that for many of these high school students, this was their keystone event. For me it was memorable, but not my keystone event.

Similarly, for another slightly different generation, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was a traumatic keystone event. I remember well where I was that bright September morning. I was in my office in Boston. I had just turned on my computer when the first plane hit. The rest of the day melted away. For most of my colleagues who were 10-20 years my junior, this was perhaps the most significant memorable event in their lives — a keystone.

As I noted above, I was a freshman in college when John F. Kennedy was shot. I can still recall with absolute clarity how that day unfolded. My freshman English composition class met in the basement of the college chapel right after lunch on Fridays. It was a sunny, warm day for November, and my classroom was uncomfortably warm. The professor was not in attendance. A substitute came by at the start of the class and put the assignment on the blackboard. We were to write an in-class essay: an analysis of John Donne’s Meditation XVII.

This profound essay reflects on mortality and the interconnectedness of humanity. The image of the funeral bell tolling and Donne’s words to ask not for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee were very moving for me. Throughout high school the bells for chapel, the beginning and end of the school day and the evening angelus had been comforting routine sounds. The essay invoking the funeral bells spoke to me in many ways. The essay’s reminder of the interconnectedness of humanity and that we should all recognize our mortality was a powerful message.

As I was finishing writing my essay, I could hear a radio voice coming from down the hall in the janitor’s closet. As I dropped off my essay and walked down the hall, I heard the news of the assassination of JFK in Dallas. I was very shaken and felt I needed a moment to gather myself before I went to my next class. It was a short walk across campus, but I chose to walk a slightly longer route across campus. It took me by an athletic field that overlooked the Raritan River where I stood for a few moments reflecting upon Donne’s words and the events in Dallas.

I arrived at my next class just as one of the other students was telling the professor what had just happened. At first the professor thought that the student was mistaken or making up a story. She left to go check on what was going on. Still stunned, I simply took my usual seat and expected the lesson to commence upon her return. Instead, she came back into the classroom with tears streaming down her face and scrawled on the blackboard – class cancelled. I was quite relieved since my own thoughts were quite scrambled. I knew that I needed time to process the events of the day. I left the campus and drove home. I had been looking forward to the weekend since I did not have to go to convent to work. It was one weekend when there was no retreat scheduled. I spent the weekend like many Americans glued to the television filled with sadness and horror. This was for me the most memorable event of my young adult life, my keystone event.

Accepting College – Over My Shoulder

When a friend recently asked me to write a college recommendation for her daughter, I reflected on how the times have changed. The entire college entry process has evolved as more students go to college. When I was preparing to enter college, parents did not take their children on extended weeklong college preview tours. A prospective student might visit a campus or so and meet with admissions officials, but it was not a must do part of college application and entry. There were no websites with lovely pictures and descriptions of campus life, no online catalogues.

All the information was in a paper catalogue. Many high schools, including mine, had a library of recent catalogues that students could peruse. My school did not have a guidance counselor to help students with the process of identifying and selecting the college that would fit their needs. Parents, students and the vice-principal, a nun, worked together to make the college decisions. In all fairness, there were only eighteen students in my graduating class, most knew exactly where they wanted to go to college. The intellectual talent level in my class was quite varied, from those who qualified as National Merit Scholars to girls for whom junior college or finishing school was in their future. I fell into the top part of my class, took the hardest classes and a heavy academic load. Advanced Placement classes were also not yet widespread or offered by my school. I would have taken them, if they had been available.

My parents made my college choice. My future college was preordained. At first, I did not quite realize how preordained it was. In my junior year, like my classmates, I sent away catalogues and reviewed the school’s stash of information. I dreamed of going away to college, having a little agency over my life and being able to be a typical college student. It wasn’t in the cards. My parents had grown wiser than when my older sister was applying to college.

My sister is nine years older than me. She was sent to a prestigious boarding school on the Main Line outside Philadelphia. How this came about is her story not mine, but it impacted me. She took an extra year of high school, so that she could spend more time learning studio art. She was not a strong student, so her college admission was an anxious concern for my parents. It was not where she would go, but rather where she could go. She was finally accepted to the same state university where I would later go. She was a commuter student, a far cry from her boarding school experience. For a long time, she carried an air of resentment about being forced to go to the state college.

Because I skipped a grade and my sister took five years for high school, our nine-year gap shrank. I entered college in 1963 just five years after she graduated in 1959. My parents reasoned that I had done well in high school, did not have special talents (read musical) that would need nurturing in a specialty school, so I could or should just follow my sister’s lead. Mind you, she had spent most of her college years degrading the school, her fellow students and the campus.

The decision was made. I was to go to college where my sister went. An ugly scene ensued – tears and disappointment, but I made a peace with it. I was urged by my parents to apply to two other campuses of the state university; both were in dangerous urban settings. They were to be my backup schools, just in case I did not get into my “first choice.” I dutifully mailed my applications by the deadlines. There was no early admission/acceptance schedule. Most colleges would send out acceptance letters in late winter. By March 15, the college acceptance rodeo was over. College acceptances were sent to my high school, and the nun would proudly read them at our daily assembly – mail call. The letters were also posted on a bulletin board. My first acceptance arrived before the Christmas holidays. It was a matter of just a few weeks before I received notices from all three schools that they would welcome me into their freshman class. I was the first member of my class to receive a college acceptance letter. At the time it felt like a participation or consolation prize. I vowed to make the most of my college career.