My Reasoning Behind Why I Wanted And Went To Go To College

When I got to college it was like entering a new and uncharted dimension- my brief encounter with organized education consisted of 3-4 months of adult ed... college was definitely uncharted waters and I had no idea what to expect. Like I wrote before, I was afraid of failure going up against 'America's best and brightest.' It turned out to be something of a disappointment- as I also wrote before, by the end of my first year I was writing master's theses for money. And then there was my relationship with the professors...

By my Sophomore year most of the profs in the Political Science dept. looked at me like more of a faculty member than a student- I even had a mailbox along with the rest of the faculty. It was also in my Sophomore year that Ted took an interest in me. Ted was one of the Poly Sci professors and he approached me with with a proposal... after asking if could write a 25 page paper, he said if I would write it on NAFTA (which was being debated at the time) from a Mexican perspective, he would help me get it published. In the political science world being published could make or break a career- many of the professors at Central had never been published... which turned out to be a double-edged sword for me; on the one hand it was great career-wise, but it also caused some friction with certain faculty members whose own credentials were questionable. I had to avoid taking classes with them.

Anyway, I wrote the paper and Ted, my new 'best friend,' arranged for me to present it at a series of academic conferences to defend it with my 'peers' (Ph.D's), what they call in academic writing 'peer review.' These conferences included the Michigan Political Science Assn. (MPSA), MIDEON (Michigan Inter-Disciplinary Educational Outreach Network) and finally at the American Political Science Assn. (APSA), the bigtime- the yearly conference in Washington DC. for all the big-shots in the world od political science. The MPSA conference was held at Alma College that year, about 25-30 miles from Central (my school). In the audience sitting alongside Ted was Deena.

Deena was a year ahead of me and about 30 years younger. She was as beautiful as she was brilliant- she graduated at 19, before heading off to American University in Washington for her Ph.D in International Relations. At the MIDEON conference at Michigan State, once again, there was Deena in the audience, my one-girl fan club. One day we went for coffee and she looked me in the eye and said: 'I love you Richie.' I rode to Washington for the APSA conference with my friend Won Paik, a poly sci prof who was also presenting a paper... we were going to split a room at the Sheraton- the conference was at the Hilton, where President Reagan got shot. After checking into the Sheraton, Won and I headed for the Hilton to check things out and I wasn't there five minutes when guess who I ran into... Deena had come from Michigan to hear me present my paper.

The conference was three days long, my paper was on day two as was Won's- then we could relax and enjoy Washington. I was pretty excited about the conference, I was on a panel with Theodore Lowi from Cornell. I had heard some tapes of his lectures and was looking forward to meeting him (he turned out to be a complete asshole). Also on the panel was Ralph Nader who turned out to be a great guy, he even invited me to lunch at the Hilton. My paper was an historical comparison between the outcome of the first NAFTA a commercial reciprocity treaty in the late 1800's in which the Mexican president threw the people under the bus, and the likely outcome of the one currently proposed... I predicted that the people would once again get kicked off their land, only instead of selling it to the railroads, it would be sold to large agri-businesses such as Cargill, Monsanto and ADM... and that within 10-15 years we would see unprecedented numbers of immigrants (legal and otherwise). Only Ralph Nader agreed. Theodore Lowi laughed and wouldn't even shake my hand.

Day two was also the night that Deena showed up at my hotel room while Won was out hitting the strip clubs along with some Korean profs and the Ambassador. When he came back to the room (or should I say crawled) he knocked. When I opened the door he mumbled something about thinking Deena might be there. Something was getting fishy! In the 11 or so years I was married I never looked at another woman, and I was starting to feel like I was being set up- with Deena either being the bait or the prize... either way, I wasn't biting.

The NAFTA paper was only the beginning. Not long after I got back, Ted started hinting around for me to run for public office- nothing too big to start out with- city council or maybe state rep. I laughed and told him my interest in politics was purely analytical and told him half-jokingly that I wasn't corrupt enough for politics. I say half-jokingly because I would never consider compromising my integrity for politics. Nearing the end of my Junior year Ted hit me with the bombshell... he asked me where I wanted to go for my Ph.D. I said I hadn't given it a lot of thought. Ted asked me if I had ever heard of the CFR- the Council on Foreign Relations for anyone living in a political vacuum. 'Yeah,' I told him, 'they're the enemy.'

Ted laughed and told me that I could have any Ph.D program in the country I wanted- all student loan debt erased- free of charge... that included Harvard, Yale, or any other place I desired. Then it hit me... I was being 'groomed,' just like Deena had been groomed. She was a military brat, growing up on bases around the globe. She spoke several languages fluently and was the student director of the Model UN at Central Michigan. They had 'given' her everything she wanted and she had swallowed the bait. The whole 'I love you Richie' business was likely her following orders- I was almost 30 years older than she was. But it gets better- there was only one catch... I had to give up my wife and kids who 'would hold me back.' Ted told me I could have anything I wanted in exchange for my family, saying I would likely lose them anyway because I wouldn't have time for them. He had vastly underestimated me- I hadn't swallowed the bait at the Sheraton in Washington- I had remained faithful so I would have to be co-opted another way. The question I couldn't answer was why me? I'm just some kid from the streets of Boston- I had spent half my life drunk and homeless- what the hell did the CFR want with me?

In retrospect I think Deena was to be my 'prize,' used first to drive a wedge between my wife and me and then my 30 pieces of silver for selling my soul. She would have been a 'suitable' mate for whatever the CFR decided I was to become, unlike my wife who the elites would have viewed as 'trailer trash.' I informed Ted that I wasn't for sale and neither was my integrity- that the sole reason I went to college in the first place was to make a better life for my family... which I wound up losing anyway. About six years later my loving wife left me for a skinhead... she then poisoned my kids against me telling them I had walked out on them... such is life, my life at least.

The only thing I still don't understand is why... why me? The best I can figure, it's because of my background- I would be an easy sale... the old carrot and stick- dangle fame and fortune in front of me and watch me jump. That's the only reason I can think of- I certainly don't possess any great mental faculties that would make me attractive to such a 'prestigious' institution such as the CFR. They practically run the country, what would they want with a street kid from Boston. The only other thing I can think of is to employ the same skill-set I developed in Vietnam. But I'll guess I'll die never knowing... I didn't take the bait and I never wonder about what could have been... only why?