I am a bit agog at beginning to write this only a few hours shy of the exact mark of 25 years since I left for college. This state of mind is not founded on the fact that I cannot do the math – clearly, just above here, I did just that. No, it’s more that I remember it like it was yesterday… Just like many of my elders had warned me.
At the same time, it’s a bit dubious to say that I was leaving the roost on September 2, 1990 because I had spent my entire senior year of high school away from home, as my folks had moved back to my native New Jersey & I had stuck to my guns to stay in Texas to finish high school with my friends – many of whom I’d known since I was age 7.
But, I digress…I headed off to college this day 25 years ago.
I had toured Emerson College in March of 1990 on a breezy & cool day. I had already been to Boston College the night before & had a later appointment with Boston University that day. I had toured Fordham & NYU back in NYC already.
So, when I walked onto the campus at Emerson, it simply felt different. NYU was already beginning to take on the massive shape that it has now, despite a few cozy brownstones in Greenwich Village. At that time, the only buildings Emerson had were cozy brownstones & a few pre-war residence halls dotting the Back Bay. So, I also felt a certain homey-ness; a coziness.
I had found Emerson College through my subscription to Stage Craft magazine that I had as a sophomore through senior in high school. Yes, I was rather serious about becoming a lighting & sound designer on Broadway. Back then – Yes, feel free to make the ‘…back in my day, sonny!’ jokes. I’ve earned them. – you could fill out little response cards in magazines like this that would get you information sent to you via “snail mail” – then known only as “mail.” Emerson looked interesting to me & I got information about it.
Come to think of it, I actually had applied simply on the fact that I had seen those ads in those magazines. I toured the school after I had already submitted my app. It was only a $50 application fee back then, sonny!!! Anyway, they had a pretty well-known theatre department & many famous alums who’d graduated from said program. (My mother was a ‘Days of our Lives’ addict & the actress who played “Calliope Jones” was amongst the alums. So, I had apply, right??!!). I thought I would give it a go & that my career in technical theatre would be underway by September 1994!
All of that changed, however, when the tour guide brought us into WERS-FM, the public, student-run, radio station’s main doors on the second floor of 126 Beacon Street.
To my left was an on-air studio that transmitted to a good bit of New England. In the smaller, middle studio was a basic news studio. And, to my right was my holy grail – a 36 track mixing console with a music studio attached.
The deal was sealed. Assuming they’d have me, Emerson was where I was spending the next 4 years of my life.
Cut to about 6 months later & I am in the backseat of my folks’ car as we amble our way up to Boston from New Jersey. That’s a lie! With the way my old man drove, “ambling” doesn’t suffice. We sprinted in our car to Boston! Frankly, I couldn’t wait to get out of the car & get on with my life.
I remember getting out of the car when the various staff & student volunteers swarmed the vehicle to help move my crap in. I basically had 3 things:
1. Clothes.
2. Towels & toiletries.
3. Music – about 100 CDs or so, a stereo system & speakers the size of Montana.
I was moved into room 601 in Charlesgate, a massive, 1890s, 8-story building just at the lip of the Back Bay & just before you hit Kenmore Square. It was gothic & impressive to this 18 year old! (Side note: The Discovery Channel once dubbed Charlesgate as the most haunted building in America).
The first week at Emerson was Orientation Week. Many of my friends attended bigger state schools in Texas & elsewhere & their orientation was over the summer & lasted a day or two. This was an entire week to get into the swing of Boston before other-aged kids would arrive. I loved it & thought it was brilliant. Class didn’t start until September 10th & my one-year older roommate didn’t move in until September 9th! I had the room to myself for a week! I made some amazing friends during orientation week that I still call friends today.
Just like they say they should be, my college years were tremendous. Mostly. My freshman year was more than I could ask for. Mostly.
I ended up spending countless hours at WERS-FM working with bands & working on-air at WECB-AM. I also did sound on the spring musical at the massive theatre that Emerson had just come to own in 1989 in Boston’s lauded, yet transitional Theatre District.
At the time – and this holds true to this day, too – when you went off to Emerson, your focus was on what you wanted to do, not your algebra class. This is also code for the fact that you do not go to Emerson College to become an astronomer or to get your MBA. You go to Emerson College to become the tops in your craft in the art form you love most – film, TV, radio, acting & the rest. I did well academically, but I also was more focused on my time at the radio station & my work in theatre. That’s why when – about 5 years ago, when I was leading an alumni event in pinstripe suit & power tie, a recent alum came up to me & said, “You look like a banker!” – it cut me to the core.
During that senior year back in Texas, there were 10 conditions to my being able to live with my best friend’s family. The three that stick out most in my memory are as follows:
1. I had to keep my usually-long hair trimmed & neat. It didn’t need to be a crew cut, but I could wear a neatly kept mullet. (Yes, like many, I had one of those! Get over it!)
2. I could only wear my Converse Chuck Taylor high tops twice a week to school. Otherwise, I needed to wear “real shoes” the rest of the week.
3. I had to have a date for the prom.
The last bit was the most aggressive – and in hindsight, the most egregious. It’s tough enough to get a date on a Friday night or a study date but this was the FUCKING PROM!!! My old man was petrified of me being like my brother: gay. So, he thought the idea that having a date for the prom was compulsory.
That single idea fucked me up more than anything in my late teens. Other than how I dressed – mostly in black & with my long hair (hey, I was in tech theatre, man!) – I was a good kid & did what I was told. I was a better than average student & had a decent social life. I didn’t date anyone until senior year of high school, but that’s not for lack of a wanton heart. (More on that some other time…)
So, I did what was asked of me, again, and I asked this girl who was a year younger than me to the prom. We had become friends & had started sort of seeing one another, so it only made sense. That was the biggest mistake of my young life, but it was a hand that was forced upon me, too.
I went to a somewhat awkward prom, graduated high school a few weeks later & moved back to my folks’ house in New Jersey a few days after that. But, I stayed with the girl. She visited once or twice over the summer (her dad was a pilot with American & she could fly free anytime & anywhere) & I visited her in Texas once or twice during the school year.
So, instead of having a romping great freshman year with the many, many young ladies that Emerson had to offer, I was true to this girl back in Texas. This was not easy, as Emerson’s female/male ratio was close to 4:1 & about one-half the guys were gay. So, it was almost like it was 8:1.
But, I was true.
Towards the middle of freshman year, I realized that I was likely in over my head financially with Emerson. In 1989, it was the most expensive college or university in the nation. That’s a whole other story entirely, but at $20k/year for a middle-middle class kid, it was *this* close to being too much. So, I started the process to transfer back to Texas to be with my girl & get much cheaper in-state tuition at UT Austin.
Second biggest mistake of my life – or maybe a subset of the first-biggest-mistake.
The girl in Texas was not true.
By the time I got back to Dallas in May of 1991, all I got from the girl was a handshake & little else. We were broken up by mid-August. The first 8 weeks in Austin were a disaster for myriad reasons & I was desperately sad & lonely for Boston & my friends there. So much so, that I would check books out of the massive UT library that showed pictures of old Boston. In 1990, Boston looked much the same as it had in 1900, so it was a bit of a time capsule.
In mid-September of 1991, I woke up in a cold sweat & with a happy realization that I could just move back to Boston. No big deal. A year later, I did just that & I finished my degree at Emerson College.
The ways in which Emerson paved the way for me are innumerable. I genuinely would have a tough time listing all of those benefits here.
Emerson made my life with my wife possible. It made my career(s) possible. I feel like I have had 2 or 3 of those, too. I cannot begin to count the endless friends & memories from my time at school then or the friends I’ve made in the last 11 years as President of the New York Alumni Chapter.
Like I said earlier, my college years were about what you’d hope for & I’m so thankful that 25 years ago today, I walked into 4 Charlesgate East.