it.
I mean, it’s not like you have a choice.
I spent the rest of high school obsessing over music and Jim, trying desperately to appear like a normal boy. When it came time to start thinking about colleges, there was a part of me that wanted to go somewhere artsy, where I could wipe the slate clean, finally integrate all the disparate parts of myself, and prepare for adulthood—the way the rest of the Candy Store Boys were planning to.
Here’s what I did instead, in mixtape and memory-fragment form, because it’s too pathetic any other way.
1. “Achin’ to Be”—The Replacements
I had originally had my heart set on Boston College, based on its name alone. It was college, it was in Boston, and that was pretty much all I needed to know. Plus it was close enough to Colgate, where Jim would be. (The East Coast was all one ten-square-mile mystery to me. I hadn’t gotten out of St. Louis much.) I had visions of ivy-covered buildings and touch football games on grassy quads. I had no idea what to study, but I knew it was time for me to grow up and get practical, which I did by making my top college choice based on theoretical plant life and imaginary roughhousing. I visited BC and it seemed fine, and then my father suggested we make the forty-five-minute drive to Worcester to visit Holy Cross, a place a few kids from Priory had gone in the past.
It was love at first sight. The campus was gorgeous. Dramatic. Set up from Worcester on a massive hill, all stately buildings and spires and columns. And as we took the campus tour, the students simply beamed. They shouted hello to one another. They were freshly scrubbed and glowed with love for themselves, one another, and, we have to assume, God. I immediately developed a crush on this place and everyone in it. I thought about autumn mornings and tailgate parties and visiting someone’s parents’ house on the Cape. It was a superficial connection we had developed, this place and I, but it felt real. What I was feeling, I now recognize, was the desire to
be
one of these people. To be proud and to beam and to look good. To have no issues with my identity. To put my love of popular culture in its proper place, behind more practical matters. To be a good Catholic and a grown man.
Holy Cross is the place for me,
I decided.
2. “Sowing the Seeds of Love”—Tears for Fears
Boston College accepted me, Holy Cross put me on the wait list, and because the object of my affection indicated that it didn’t feel the same way, I suddenly became obsessed with making it want me. I wrote letters and asked the monks who liked me to do the same, and in August, HC relented and accepted me. I was all about it. (Michael Damien’s cover of David Essex’s “Rock On” made it to number one in July, so, really, all of America was making questionable decisions in the summer of 1989.)
As my parents and I pulled up at my dormitory and a squadron of chipper sophomores in matching T-shirts unloaded our station wagon, the new Tears for Fears boomed out of a fourth-floor room. It was the first time I’d heard it, and it was sweeping and majestic and matched my feelings. I was starting over. We all were. We were all hitting the reset button. We were going to find out who we were, together. From scratch. I’d never be on the outside again.
And then I went to my room and met my two roommates, Brian and Mike, lifelong best friends from the same hometown just outside of Boston.
3. “What I Am”—Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Our first event was a tailgate and barbecue down by the football stadium, and we mingled. I learned quickly that Holy Cross draws almost exclusively from New England, and New England is a big small town. Everyone seemed to know one another, or know someone from one another’s hometowns. At the very least, everyone spoke the same language, which is the language of abuse. Mockery, I learned after many confusing and unpleasant months, is how people from New England show
I mean, it’s not like you have a choice.
I spent the rest of high school obsessing over music and Jim, trying desperately to appear like a normal boy. When it came time to start thinking about colleges, there was a part of me that wanted to go somewhere artsy, where I could wipe the slate clean, finally integrate all the disparate parts of myself, and prepare for adulthood—the way the rest of the Candy Store Boys were planning to.
Here’s what I did instead, in mixtape and memory-fragment form, because it’s too pathetic any other way.
1. “Achin’ to Be”—The Replacements
I had originally had my heart set on Boston College, based on its name alone. It was college, it was in Boston, and that was pretty much all I needed to know. Plus it was close enough to Colgate, where Jim would be. (The East Coast was all one ten-square-mile mystery to me. I hadn’t gotten out of St. Louis much.) I had visions of ivy-covered buildings and touch football games on grassy quads. I had no idea what to study, but I knew it was time for me to grow up and get practical, which I did by making my top college choice based on theoretical plant life and imaginary roughhousing. I visited BC and it seemed fine, and then my father suggested we make the forty-five-minute drive to Worcester to visit Holy Cross, a place a few kids from Priory had gone in the past.
It was love at first sight. The campus was gorgeous. Dramatic. Set up from Worcester on a massive hill, all stately buildings and spires and columns. And as we took the campus tour, the students simply beamed. They shouted hello to one another. They were freshly scrubbed and glowed with love for themselves, one another, and, we have to assume, God. I immediately developed a crush on this place and everyone in it. I thought about autumn mornings and tailgate parties and visiting someone’s parents’ house on the Cape. It was a superficial connection we had developed, this place and I, but it felt real. What I was feeling, I now recognize, was the desire to
be
one of these people. To be proud and to beam and to look good. To have no issues with my identity. To put my love of popular culture in its proper place, behind more practical matters. To be a good Catholic and a grown man.
Holy Cross is the place for me,
I decided.
2. “Sowing the Seeds of Love”—Tears for Fears
Boston College accepted me, Holy Cross put me on the wait list, and because the object of my affection indicated that it didn’t feel the same way, I suddenly became obsessed with making it want me. I wrote letters and asked the monks who liked me to do the same, and in August, HC relented and accepted me. I was all about it. (Michael Damien’s cover of David Essex’s “Rock On” made it to number one in July, so, really, all of America was making questionable decisions in the summer of 1989.)
As my parents and I pulled up at my dormitory and a squadron of chipper sophomores in matching T-shirts unloaded our station wagon, the new Tears for Fears boomed out of a fourth-floor room. It was the first time I’d heard it, and it was sweeping and majestic and matched my feelings. I was starting over. We all were. We were all hitting the reset button. We were going to find out who we were, together. From scratch. I’d never be on the outside again.
And then I went to my room and met my two roommates, Brian and Mike, lifelong best friends from the same hometown just outside of Boston.
3. “What I Am”—Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Our first event was a tailgate and barbecue down by the football stadium, and we mingled. I learned quickly that Holy Cross draws almost exclusively from New England, and New England is a big small town. Everyone seemed to know one another, or know someone from one another’s hometowns. At the very least, everyone spoke the same language, which is the language of abuse. Mockery, I learned after many confusing and unpleasant months, is how people from New England show
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