Thursday Ramble : Travel Makes It To Harvard

Travel Penguin and I finally made it to Harvard.  I had tried once before, planning and organizing only to be foiled by nasty weather, 38 degrees (F) and pissing down rain. This time it was clear skies, comfortably cool, and an easy ride on the T (subway.) There is something about the place, part of it is the reputation of being a center of knowledge, research, teaching and learning.  But deeper than that it is a setting that is calm and reflective.  Most modern college campuses have all of the charm of an office park - they are places you want to get into - do the work you have to do - and get out (walk to work and run away from it.) Harvard feels like a place you want to set and read, and think, and talk, and live (come sit a spell.) And people do live there.  The residence halls are mixed into the campus, not pushed off the periferia of the campus in hopes that the students will disappear into the town, but giving a feel that they might congregate among on the University grounds, and join in understanding and learning. It is an old fashioned model that makes me very comfortable. 

Growing up I never even dreamed of attending Harvard or anyplace like it.  My mother finished high school during World War II with a graduating class of about 12, she had the most education of anyone in my immediate family.  College was not really talked about.  Most of the people I knew who had college degrees were school teachers, and even back 50 years ago they were so poorly paid that they rented houses and apartments from the local butcher or funeral director (fortunately in my small town, those two were not the same person.) There were conversations about people going off to college to major in partying and "chasing skirts," only to end up as school teachers struggling to pay the bills.  

When I finished high school, my parents suggested I try the local community college in Florida, I couldn't figure out why, and didn't.  After a couple of years of working, I started to realize what I was missing, and that if I ever wanted to get ahead, I needed to get more education.  I also came the realization that if I worked at it, I could do almost anything.  I started at a community college that I was driving by everyday on my way to and from the office.   

After a couple of years, I needed to transfer to finish a real degree and I looked around.  One of the options was a small private liberal arts college that was kind of based on the Harvard model.  To some extent Rollins College was where the sons and daughters of Harvard Alumni who were not sharp enough to get into the Ivy League schools went.  Though less regimented in layout, the campus had that colony of learning feel.  I worked, went to college part time, and spent the better part of 10 years finishing a four year degree.  It was paid for when I finished, and I paid for it. 

Then there was a pause, and an opportunity for law school, and I seized it. 

Looking back at it, coming from where I came from, with my life experience at the time, a place like Harvard would have probably eaten me alive.  I would have been culturally unprepared.  Today, I would thrive in that environment.  

I am so glad I finally had the opportunity to visit Harvard, oh and Penguins are great scholars and always dressed in their finest feathers.