Kicked Out 1953

At 17 and forced to attend the Hotchkiss summer school after flunking four out of five final exams, Dad lit up a Lucky Strike and walked into his favorite teacher's room.

(George Norton Stone) looked as stricken by what I had done as by what he knew he must do. "Well, you might as well finish it," he said.

That was certainly the final straw. Dad had already been caught with an electric coffeepot in his room at the beginning of the year. At the end of the summer Dad was "asked not to return". This would be his second expellation. The first ( see http://saintbryantv.blogspot.com/2010/10/so-much-unfairness-in-things-1962.html) would lead to his writing career. Dad finished his boarding school career at Berkshire.

In a chapter called "Kicked Out", published in Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School, Dad explains why he has such fond memories of Hotchkiss and why he wanted me to attend a school from which he'd been expelled.

Hotchkiss Campus today

Externally, the Hotchkiss I attended in the early 1950s was, with the exception of young women, pretty much the same as the Hotchkiss of the late seventies and early eighties. More important, many of the same faculty members were still there, among them the two men by whom I have been most influenced throughout my schooling: George Norton Stone and Robert Hawkins.


Stone and his wife Jodie lived in a small apartment in Coy in the 1950's where they "somehow, intuitively knew a boy had had enough of pretending to be grown up".As kind as they both were to Dad on the corridor, Stone could be brutal in the classroom.


Mr Stone, 1953

"Bryan, you're an idiot in math! I suggest you complete this course, fulfill your math requirement, and never ever come near a numeral again."...My God, the number of blackboard erasers and pieces of chalk he whizzed by my ears! "If you don't pay attention, I'm going to be all over you like a tent!"

Mr Stone 1981

Stone was much kinder to me. Probably because I was even more pathetic at math.

Mr Hawkins 1953

Dad's favorite English teacher was "The Hawk" --a nickname having less to do with Robert Hawkin's name, I always thought, than his ability to swoop down on the hapless student who was unprepared.




Mr Hawkins 1981

Mr Hawkins taught me French. Again, I was helpless. I entered Hotchkiss as an immature 13 year old. Both Stone and Hawkins flunked me prep year, so I spent the summer trying to make up for a D Minus average.


In so many ways, our Hotchkiss experiences were alike.

Dad 1954

Dad writes In those days I never had a girl friend, much less a girlfriend, and I went to proms and concerts alone. But, then again, I suppose there was not much demand among the girls at Farmington or Miss Hall's for a boy who looked like he'd be most comfortable on a twig.


Senior Portrait with Bill Newman on the left, 1981

I didn't need a report card to feel like a failure at Hotchkiss. I was surrounded by more wealthy, better looking and much happier students. Or at least they seemed that way. Eventually I decided that I couldn't compete head to head so I became a class clown. Over four years, I sent out no noticeable S.O.S's to the faculty. I also somehow managed to graduate without having sent out a single college application.
What followed was a dramatic "lost year" I'll have to write about in the near future.



Class of 1981 reunion, 2006

In the meantime, this is the weekend of my 30th Hotchkiss reunion. I will spend it watching my daughter play in a soccer tournament three thousand miles from campus. Despite everything I've written, I do have memories of a very special time, a keen appreciation of education as well as some enduring friendships.
Those were Dad's greatest wishes for me.


THIS POST COMES WITH A FOOTNOTE



Dad, third from left.2003

At my father's memorial service a member of The Berkshire School's faculty handed me this clipping from The Berkshire Bulletin. The headline: "He's all ours, Hotchkiss". Yes, Hotchkiss has a way of claiming succesful alumni they've expelled.

Lost at Sea: Saint Bryan II September 1969

In late September, 1969, Dad learned that his brother Saint was missing from a catamaran he and a friend had been sailing off the coast of Maui. He and Aunt Joan flew out to Honolulu to do what they could. Notes from those frantic days include lists of people to contact.
The Coast Guard, Boat Yard, Newspapers, Radio & TV, Wailuku Police, Friends.
But there was no hope. Dad always said he lost not just an older brother that day but his best friend.
Among the letters of condolence Dad received is this one from family friend Finis Farr.

8 November 1969
Dear Courty:
It must have been an ordeal for you and Joan, going to Hawaii. I have thought of you often since I got the news about Saint. Losing a brother or sister must give one an especially desolate feeling, all the more poignant, I should suppose, when the one who died was still young. Saint was someone I always held in particularly high affection, because he was himself, gentle, responsive and bright.

It occurs to me now that he was ahead of his times--one of the first do-your-own thing people, and as such not fully understood by many But I think I had an inkling of what he was getting at. Perhaps I am patting myself on the back; if so, I should add that I spent one of the saddest afternoons I can recall a few weeks ago when I walked over to the post office around noon and picked up your father's note telling me that Saint and been lost and there was no more hope.

I telephoned your mother and father right away, and they were,of course, so brave and "good" about it that I found it heartbreaking, I say to you in confidence. The telephone to the voice is like the camera to the face, is it not?
Since then, in thinking of Saint, it occured to me that you'd told me, not long ago, that he was happy in Hawaii. So that part is all right. I just wish he could have gone on being happy in Hawaii.

Another thing--there's no doubt Saint had talent and I wonder if he was writing, and if you found material of interest among his papers. You understand I didn't think he was obliged to write or had to write, but I remember seeing some stories he wrote at college and they were good,
I do hope your work is shaping up as you want it, and that all goes well with you and yours
Yrs as ever,
Finis

When Dad called to tell us what happened (Lansing and I were both under 5 years old) he said Uncle Saint had dived off the boat to save a drowning friend but that the sea pulled both of them under. Recently, I was told the friend had suffered from "The Bends". He may have been partially paralyzed.

In The Great Dethriffe, Dad's second novel published in 1972, he writes that his brother had found happiness in Hawaii.

And I loved him because I knew for generations and generations back in all our other lives we had always been brothers, as we would be brothers in future lives as well...
"You know, pal" he said..."All these years I've been the older brother. I've always led and you've always followed. Well, I've just been thinking that I'd like to follow you for a while. You're my best friend and I want to be your best friend. I'd like you to lead."
"I know," I said, "but I like following you. I like you to lead. It's okay. And besides, farther on where the path gets wider, we can walk side by side."
"I'd really like that." he said.


Uncle Saint and Dad, 1938.