The Honors Dorm

So Wifey thinks I should write a book. Today, in the shower, the idea of its subject came to me. But, since I'm too lazy and undiscliplined, I'm going to write it in installments. Sort of like Dickens did, but without his talent.

Today is the first one. I'll go back to it from time to time. It's called "The Honors Dorm."

A confederation of events has compelled me to write. First, more than any place I lived, my old apartment at U Miami was significant to me in my formative years. And, as I visited yesterday and confirmed --it no longer exists. The old concrete and block three story building, built after WW II, is just a pile of rubble. Actually, not even that --they've cleared the rubble to a smooth, graded, ready to build empty lot.

Third, my youngest, D2, is precisely the age I was when I moved into the HD. She's a second semester freshman in college, as I was in January 1980. I gow older and don't know how long my memory will be relatively solid.

So I begin today.

Chapter One: What Brought Me There? I was a pretty good student at MacArthur High in Levittown, LI. As my friend Ken's wife Joelle points out, being good at MacArthur, the working class capital of LI, where most of the kids were children of NYC cops, firemen, salesmen, and factory guys, was like being tall among midgets. Yes, Joelle, who went to Stuyvesant High in the City, and then to Ivy League colleges, is an educational snob. She's also right.

Meanwhile, my mother had decided that the family should move to Florida. She was 58 and my father was 59. He had a profit share pension coming to him with a value of about $250K. My folks had other savings, and the prospect of Social Security beginning when my Dad turned 62. They figured the money they got from our split level on the 1/6 acre lot would pay for a Florida condo. And then came the Winter of '77.

It was very cold, and snowed a lot. My mother rarely left the house. She told my father the HAD to move. Coming from a long line of Jewish husbands, he knew that if mama ain't happy, ain't no one in the house happy. He agreed, especially after my mother went to visit HER mother in Miami Beach to move her to a nursing home, and came home to show my father a contract she signed to buy a condo in Delray Beach.

My mother had NEVER done something like that before. My Dad knew she meant business...

So, my father set about trying to get me to apply to U Miami. Ha! No way. I was going to go to Stony Brook, or Hofstra, or one of the other SUNY schools. Miami was "SunTan U," and I wasn't going there.

Then, my father met a young doctor, the son of one of hus customers, and the fellow had received his undergraduate training at UM, in the Honors Program, and raved about it. I listened, a little. And then I applied.

And then came the scholarship offer. Since I was in the top 10% of my class, and had a 1200 SAT, they offered me a "Presidential Scholarship," which covered 1/2 tuition. In 1979, that was worth $1200 per year! More importantly, my 17 year old ego was stroked. Even though I never visited, I committed to go to UM, and join the entering Honors Program in the Fall of 1979.

When I arrived, though, the Honors Dorm, Building 22, was full. I was placed on a waiting list.

But I joined the Honors Students Association (HSA) and met my life's first mentor, other than my father. I met Joe Durnell.