Ivy-League Arrogance that Shatters Dreams

"Think about the good times/Think about the bad times..."

So sang James Brown in a hymn to human reproduction of the late '60s, a blues-inspired shout rooted in gospel.

I went to Harvard from 1959 to 1963. Let me make it clear to younger readers that almost nothing is more devastating than a childhood without playfulness, youth and young adulthood without dreams or romance without fantasy.

The arrogance of the years 1959-1963 in the light of history borders on the obscene. John F. Kennedy '40 became President by the thinnest of margins while I was a college student. He was still President in 1963. There was no Civil Rights Act for anyone at all in 1963 nor was there a Voting Rights Act.

All the same, those who had money and power were certain that anything wished for--within reason--could be achieved and would be.

I didn't like Harvard as a student. I was fond of classmates but what was easy for them was hard for me. I can't say I hated Harvard; that would be too extreme. Learning did not come easy. I often felt that Harvard carved out my soul.

All the same I played the game; when it was all over, I too would participate in the dream, help run it, steer its course. How I was to do this was up to me--society was more or less stuck with me. After all, I went to Harvard.

A friend in my House played organ at a small gospel church on Sundays. More and more I spent Sundays on Columbus Avenue in Roxbury. I never joined--I have too many metaphysical doubts ever to be a fundamentalist. But the instinctive comfort in gospel or blues remains with me to this day whether I know the song or not.

During the past quarter of a century I often fooled muself that indeed, I would participate in the dream that those years seemed to promise. The consequences were tragic and on occasions nearly fatal.

Today I have little; no awards, no trophies. Yet, I often go down the street of broken glass snapping my fingers. I hear the music inside and no one will ever be able to take that from me. To make music one does not need a special gift for performance. In the world of the blues or the church you do not have to be a soloist to give testimony.

My job is a focus. It sustains. Outside my work, playing a supporting role, it is still music which gives me joy. I have no records for I have no stereo. I have never even seen a compact disc player.

As Dylan Thomas once wrote in A Child's Christmas in Wales, "The bells that the children hear are inside them."