In mid-September 1957, I began my four years at Cornell University. I had driven to Ithaca with both of my parents. They left in mid-afternoon on the train for their immediate return to Ohio – a not uncommon event. They never wanted to stay overnight anywhere away from home. When they left, I had a feeling I’d never experienced before. I felt homesick. For the first time in my life, I would be alone for an extended period. I knew no one in Ithaca. I’d always had acquaintances, if not friends, wherever I had lived for the twenty-two years of my life. Now there was no one. The homesickness had to be overcome.
That first evening I stood on the Hill near Willard Straight Hall, the student union building, and looked out over the valley and the Lake. The library chimes were playing. The scene was not unlike one from a Hollywood collegiate romance. If only Karen were with me. I thought about why I was standing there.
I had chosen Cornell for its beauty and for its academic renown. I had to focus on these elements and not on my feelings of desertion. Some of the Cornelians I had met briefly at The Straight and in Savage Hall, where the Biochemistry Department was located and where I would spend my years at Cornell, had seemed friendly. I revived the expectation I once held. I trusted that not everyone would be like a few examples I had also met – those who were concerned only with their own firmly established niches. The world might be an oyster, for some, but oysters also had closed shells isolating them from their surroundings. Yet, oysters also had pearls formed from buried irritants. I’d see what might develop.
I quickly learned that almost anything could develop in Ithaca. The adage for the location was true: if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute, it will change. My notes for Sunday, September 22 are to the effect: “The morning was sparkling; the early afternoon, hot and humid; late afternoon, showering; early evening, pouring rain; and late evening, cold and windy. There are still a few hours for it to snow.”
The next afternoon, I made my way to the Cornell Chapter of Delta Upsilon. The House was physically striking, with another cinematic view of the Lake. I met a few of the brothers, but neither they nor I seemed to be impressed with one another. Over the next few weeks, I often went there for dinner. However, since I did not know how to play bridge, there was little to do afterwards. Few wanted to engage in conversations, per se. Within a few months, I finally gave up and never went back to the House. What had once been the center of my social life was now null and void.
My room at 107 Harvard Place was equally joyless. It was merely a site for sleeping and for studying. Most of my time would be spent either in the communal office area at Savage Hall assigned to graduate students for study, or in the library on the nearby Agriculture campus. I also found comfortable, wing-back chairs in the library and lounges of The Straight for reading fiction, especially old sci-fi.
At the time, Biochemistry was part of the state-controlled campus of Cornell, rather than being part of its private campus, where I did take most of my basic science courses in biology and chemistry. In later years, when I did not have a fellowship but was paid through an assistantship, it was advantageous to be part of the public college of Cornell instead of its more expensive, private component.
Once again, my journal entries were extremely limited, even more so than in previous years. In fact, there are only two notations for all of 1957. Most of my non-study time was devoted to correspondence with Karen. Although I tried to write daily, I failed in this intent, much to her discomfort from time to time. These letters, nevertheless, serve as a partial source for any details of my early recollections of Cornell University.