8390. THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW, #112

112. PRINCETON

Time has gaps. We fall through

them sometimes. Here, I fall

and leap - 50 years. Princeton,

NJ, 2006. I'm sitting on one of

those benches out front of the

stores on Nassau Street. Some

guy from India, part of a visiting

group, is sitting next to me, by

chance. In his funny little accent

he says to me, 'Do you come

from this town, if you do not

mind that I should ask? It is so

very gentle that they have these

benches here? For all the people?

I am very tired, and this is good,

to sit. I have been walking to

very long today.' (It may have

actually been 'too' very long

today. I couldn't tell, and from

the way he spoke he may have

very well thought he actually

was walking to some place

called 'very long today'). I

nodded back and said, 'Yes,

for everyone, and they're

very nice Sit and rest. I've

been coming here since 1965,

when that university there was

men only. But, no, I don't live

here.' It was in, perhaps. 1969

that Princeton University began

allowing females. I had a friend

then, Mary Martell, who was a

member of that first, girl's,

class. There were quite a few

parties that Fall, and I'd gone to

one, sort of in celebration  -  they

were held  -  of the girls' arrival

onto campus. Not that it was all

very welcomed. There remained a

lot of grudge and opposition to

the move. The first year or two,

as I recall, they really had no

'place' prepared to house the

girls. For some reason no

especial 'girl's dorm' had been

put together and they were instead

stuffed into an outlying house. I

think maybe there were 12 or 15

girls total. It was kind of ramshackle,

wood, and run down. Ad hoc. They

made do. I lost touch. At this party

(everyone was older than me,

realize, by some two years), and

what I can recall is a bunch of

uppity boys, Princeton men, they

called themselves, acting flippant

and royal, imbibing great globs

of very self-important drinks,

and having it all over the girls

that they were, basically,

beneath contempt and had

better find ways immediately

to make themselves worthy of

'Princeton,' or be gone. Back

into the whirlwind from whence

they came, to put it poetically

now. To my eyes, it was all very

funny. Here were college guys,

adrift and stupid enough, who'd

usually start fornicating with

anything not tied down, somehow

drinking themselves into a flutter

and turning their backs on 12

or 15 'girls'. All of a sudden

they had to act as pinprick

prudes rather than as horny

toads, to make some ridiculous

point about preferential levels

of personal 'quality.' I myself

was only there with a friend

or two, Rutgers guys actually,

and Mary, just to lend support.

I forget the exact year too, but

I bounced around a lot back then.

I stayed out of all this issue's

stuff. By the way, as it turned

out, the Rutgers guys could

outdrink and apparently outman

any of these Princeton hoodlums

on a dime and without a doubt.

I don't know what any of the

girls, that night, noticed. BUT,

for myself, one ting I noticed

right off was how stupid and

silly the rich-people (I called

anybody there rich, because they

were certainly rich by any of my

standards) seemed to 'stratify'

the society below them, beneath

them. It's only them  -  those

beneath  -  who can validify for

the rich the fact they are richer

and better and haughtier and

far-surpasseth, the little schlubs

below them. Which is all very

well and true enough, I guess,

and why there are 'service;

industries to serve these people.

Why bakers bake, and plumbers

plumb  - all in the hopes of one

of these illustrious money one

buying their services, throwing

them a bone. But, the problem, and

this is, say, 1969 remember) was

that any of these little shits had

not done anything on their own to

attain this, they were just born to

it. Their attitude was, therefore,

to me, unbecoming. That old saw

about people 'being born on third

base who think they hit the triple

that put them there' holds pretty

true. That was the feeling I got

from the night, petty tomfoolery

and false pride. But, what do I

know. Any of those guys  -  and

I can actually think of two whom

I do know from those years,  -

could have been smart, worked

really hard, and gotten it all right.

I know already that from those

years have come statesmen,

big-time attorneys, writers,

and more. Names you'd know.

-

Princeton always did hold a special

magic for me. Nothing to put a

finger on, it was just 'elsewhere',

I guess. I had a seminary friend

who ended up there as an undergrad,

a student. I guess he graduated

about '72 or so. I guess. I saw

him around a few times, said hi.

I always remembered, about Eddie,

(everybody called him Eddie. It

was never any of that Ed, or

Edward, stuff; just Eddie, thanks).

He too, even in seminary, was

one of our 'richer' kids, and we

had a goodly number of them.

What I remember was how he

nearly got laughed off the face

of the earth by us, all of us, in

the classroom once, for finishing

a long and pretty good oral report

he'd done, about something, I can't

remember. It was pretty cruel, what

we did. We somehow had gotten

onto the subject of what sources

he'd used for the information

and report, I forget if he was

telling hem or we were asking.

Anyway, his sources, or main

source, seemed to be 'Reader's

Digest', which back then was

a monthly compendium of

usually pretty plain and dull,

or dumb, essays and such,

edited, truncated, and

otherwise fairly useless. A

million people a month

received it in their homes.

When he blurted it out as a

'source', we crucified him.

Catcalls and huzzahs, like

some British prep school

crowd. That moment and

what occurred has always

stayed with me. Poor Eddie

Adams; I wish him well.

-

When I got that junk car

from that guy's yard, running

and all, one of the fist places 

I took my girlfriend was 

Princeton. In that little 

'jebeep' as my mother 

called it. Death trap, Euro

car, two different horns.

You remember. We got

there OK, of course, and

she was flabbergasted. For

her, getting to Princeton was

all strange and wonderful.

There's a big old school there,

a you enter Nassau Street and

downtown, (it's now the Princeton

University Art School and art 

gallery). Back then it was just 

still a regular school. On the

lawn that day, was an huge 

art show  -  easels and paintings

and all sorts of people milling

about. She was really taken.

As if I'd introduced her to 

something and someplace 

fantastic and really exotic.

There used to be a regular

diner there, long gone now, 

stuffed in between buildings,

the silver, diner car kind of

old-line American diner. The

Princeton Diner, or something.

We ate, had coffee, all that.

She thought it was great. That

was a good feeling for me; it

somehow connected It was funny

because her parents had been 
always taking her all sorts of 
places, flying around for vacations 
to California, Hawaii, driving to 
New Hampshire, all that stuff.   
This, by contrast, was but 20

miles from home and another

world entire, connected to 
all other things and all other 
currents. I'd touched a nerve, 
and it really got her going.