From Between High School and College

I always say it was summer, but actually February to September 1962, since I was in the smaller mid year class. I made a list of books I wanted to read, mostly classic novels, for “background”, before I started my English Major at Stanford. I can’t remember now much of what it was, but I sat in my room mostly all day and didn’t talk to my mom hardly at all. I would emerge for dinner when Martin Williams’ theme song came on the jazz station my dad turned on when he got home. I read the 2 books assigned for all incoming freshmen, Whitehead’s “The Aims of Education” and Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer and The Heart of Darkness” I also read “On the Road”, which totally blew me away. It seemed like an intense vision of life calling to me. All the other books felt like a professional duty. Even if they provided moments of pleasure, they didn’t grab my life.

#1.6 in SA1. Before College

I wrote a piece about this called The Summer Before College, for the 1997 Memoir Class. The assignment was to write something about your mother. I had a hard time, so I went to my Progoff Journal where I started a Dialog with my mother. The piece is pretty much a transcription of that exercise in active imagination.