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About This Book
The on-going problem of what to do with me began to manifest itself. I had no
secondary school degree or scholastic or athletic honors with which to impress, being home tutored, so colleges understandably would look askance at my credentials such as they were. My mother's family all matriculated from St. Paul's to Harvard, but acceptance there, despite the family legacy of
attendance, was highly unlikely. And, frankly, I had no interest in the college
due, no doubt, to a lifetime of over-exposure to the place. Again, fate
intervened in the form of father's college roommate.
Hillary Knight was the scion of an old Hartford family that had been one of the
city's founding settlers, and was a partner in one of the large law firms there.
He and father still kept in touch, and he must have been well aware of my
precarious situation. He volunteered to use his influence at Trinity College
where he had been a past trustee, and so it came to pass that I was accepted
into the freshman class. No doubt an eyebrow or two must have been raised by the admission committee.
The college occupies an old piece of ridge top pasture on the south side of
the city of Hartford, Connecticut. From the brownstone gothic pile that
stretches along the ridge, there are glorious views to the far off line of hills
to the west. To the east, the ridge drops down to grassy playing fields on which we competed against our Little Three rivals: Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan.
Above all, the shining white marble tower of the collegiate gothic chapel
punctuates the skyline. The college had a self-contained quality, a part of
Hartford yet separate from it.
I was happy there among the two thousand bright and hearty young men that constituted the student body. Hillary Knight kept an avuncular eye on me,
frequently inviting me to dine with him and his family in their large west end
home. Often he would invite me to lunch with him at his clubs downtown where I was introduced to the influential men of the city. I believe that I was emerging
from my shell of shyness and made a tolerable appearance. At least I could no
longer detect the wondering frowns that had been so much of my childhood and adolescence.
And then the war came along. Midway through my junior year, I decided to
enlist rather than wait to be drafted. And so it was in spring of 1946, as I
previously mentioned, I returned home to America having done my duty for my
country behind a typewriter. I brought with me two Savile Row bespoke suits and one pre-war MG sports car.
Since I could not resume my education until the fall semester of '47, having
already completed two and one half years at Trinity and the current spring
semester being well advanced, father decided that I must obtain gainful
employment rather than hang around home riding horses and playing golf.
Ah golf! My parents were long-time members of the Dedham Polo Club, several miles down the road from our home. The name is a misnomer. Polo actually had been played there a generation ago (there were photographs on the clubhouse walls to prove that), but it was really just a golf club. There I had taken lessons from the club pro and had learned to love the game, although the game did not reciprocate my affection. As a child, I had played occasionally with my father and frequently by myself, as I had no golfing playmates. Now that I was released from service to my country, I was eager to resume the game and perhaps gain some proficiency at it. However, my father had other ideas.
secondary school degree or scholastic or athletic honors with which to impress, being home tutored, so colleges understandably would look askance at my credentials such as they were. My mother's family all matriculated from St. Paul's to Harvard, but acceptance there, despite the family legacy of
attendance, was highly unlikely. And, frankly, I had no interest in the college
due, no doubt, to a lifetime of over-exposure to the place. Again, fate
intervened in the form of father's college roommate.
Hillary Knight was the scion of an old Hartford family that had been one of the
city's founding settlers, and was a partner in one of the large law firms there.
He and father still kept in touch, and he must have been well aware of my
precarious situation. He volunteered to use his influence at Trinity College
where he had been a past trustee, and so it came to pass that I was accepted
into the freshman class. No doubt an eyebrow or two must have been raised by the admission committee.
The college occupies an old piece of ridge top pasture on the south side of
the city of Hartford, Connecticut. From the brownstone gothic pile that
stretches along the ridge, there are glorious views to the far off line of hills
to the west. To the east, the ridge drops down to grassy playing fields on which we competed against our Little Three rivals: Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan.
Above all, the shining white marble tower of the collegiate gothic chapel
punctuates the skyline. The college had a self-contained quality, a part of
Hartford yet separate from it.
I was happy there among the two thousand bright and hearty young men that constituted the student body. Hillary Knight kept an avuncular eye on me,
frequently inviting me to dine with him and his family in their large west end
home. Often he would invite me to lunch with him at his clubs downtown where I was introduced to the influential men of the city. I believe that I was emerging
from my shell of shyness and made a tolerable appearance. At least I could no
longer detect the wondering frowns that had been so much of my childhood and adolescence.
And then the war came along. Midway through my junior year, I decided to
enlist rather than wait to be drafted. And so it was in spring of 1946, as I
previously mentioned, I returned home to America having done my duty for my
country behind a typewriter. I brought with me two Savile Row bespoke suits and one pre-war MG sports car.
Since I could not resume my education until the fall semester of '47, having
already completed two and one half years at Trinity and the current spring
semester being well advanced, father decided that I must obtain gainful
employment rather than hang around home riding horses and playing golf.
Ah golf! My parents were long-time members of the Dedham Polo Club, several miles down the road from our home. The name is a misnomer. Polo actually had been played there a generation ago (there were photographs on the clubhouse walls to prove that), but it was really just a golf club. There I had taken lessons from the club pro and had learned to love the game, although the game did not reciprocate my affection. As a child, I had played occasionally with my father and frequently by myself, as I had no golfing playmates. Now that I was released from service to my country, I was eager to resume the game and perhaps gain some proficiency at it. However, my father had other ideas.