What I Did on My Summer Vacation

This is something I wrote for my 25th Anniversary High School Reunion a couple of years ago. It summed up where I was at the time (with the impending birth of my son). Had I had a blog then, this would have been posted there. I just happened upon it while looking for something else and figured, what the hey ...

Just for a little context, nowadays, Stuyvesant has a reputation for being ultra competitive and uptight, and populated exlcusively by Asian-American genius overachievers. In my day, in keeping with the generally apocalyptic character of New York, it was a much funkier place. There was a distinct lawless, anarchic character to the place, shaped by the forces of waning hippiedom and rising punk in a decaying city. The principal at the time was a guy named Gaspar R. Fabricante, who was a complete cypher so far as any of us could tell. He had no relationship of any kind with any students or teachers. Periodically, he could be observed at the top of the main stairs of the school greeting the student body in the style of a tin-pot dictator, with slicked back hair and a forced smile. He would occasionally circulate some sort of communication or make an announcement over the PA system reminding us that we attended a hallowed institution. I'm sure announcements of similar character are still made in the present day Stuyvesant, and from what I gather would probably be taken more or less seriously at face value.

Such was not the case back then. To most of my friends, even though many of us were relatively high achieving, Ivy-bound, etc., the ideas that we constituted some sort of elite, and that the decrepit teachers and facilities that attempted to contain us actually deserved their reputation were patently absurd. I don't quite know why the memory stuck with me, because I had zero contact with the him, and gave him virtually no thought during my high schoole years, but GRF actually did pronounce "You are the new elite" at our graduation, just at the moment that a friend of mine in the front row sent up a puff of smoke from a bong hit ...

What I Did on My Summer Vacation
By John Albin, Stuyvesant, class of 1980

It was a cloudless June day in 1980. Though the sky was clear, the air hung heavy with anticipation, the anxious perspiration of imminent adulthood, and a hint of burning vegetation (which due to impending life circumstances -- to be described later -- I shall not identify). I sat in Avery Fisher Hall with 800 of my closest friends listening to the most inspirational orator since William Jennings Bryan predict my future. I'm speaking, of course, of the great Gaspar R. Fabricante and his vision of me as a member of the new elite, a Stuyvesantian bound for glory.

Sad, to say, Gaspar, I haven't quite lived up to that billing. Stuyvesant (and the 1970s) taught me many things, not least a capacity for, suspicion of pomaded authority, along with a mastery of wry detachment and indolence, to say nothing of the nail delay and the collected works of McKinley Morganfield and Chester Burnett. However, Stuyvesant didn’t teach me how to find my way in the world. That is something I’ve had to learn on my own, and is still a work in progress.

That work began just two months after Gaspar’s valedictory, when I set forth on the road to elitehood. The first stop (after a series of track fires and diversions to some of New York’s more apocalyptic settings) was a collection of ivory (well, copper-roofed, but that ain’t the metaphor) towers, in a community the great 20th century philosopher Carlin once called “White Harlem”. I, a simple youth from a small village in lower Manhattan, soon found myself trafficking (never proven) among an assortment of humanity from an assortment of lands, some unknown even to the cartographer Steinberg.

While at this fine institution, I continued honing my skills as an authentic interpreter of African American music, subsidizing my studies with weekend gigs and dreaming of seeing my name in lights at the Regal (or at least Dan Lynch). Eventually, I made it as far as a certain Delphic temple on 125th Street (as an authentic Ivory Coast pop musician), but I realized that, even though the world always made life comfortable for artists, it might nevertheless be a good idea to pick up a trade. With this in mind, I settled in for a long hard slog in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and Marx, figuring that if the blues didn’t pan out, the job market was always bullish for philosopher kings.

This plan, of course played out to perfection. First, the obligatory sojourn in a Paris garret, followed by three years of editing elementary school textbooks. By 1988 I found my self in civil service, studying garbage accumulation on New York City’s roadsides. The mythical cave wasn’t available, but shadows cast on underpasses served nearly as well. I could sense elitehood around the next bend.

Slowly I accumulated knowledge and responsibility, making sure to avoid remuneration with each step up the ranks. After all, philosopher kings are in it for justice, truth, and discovering the forms, and I certainly discovered the forms. Personal, intellectual, artistic, and romantic growth followed the same glorious arc as career and finances for many years.

Through it all, my fecklessness rarely caused me much more than an occasional sleepless night. I had friends and flings, music, recreation, and navel gazing to divert me. I also had the friendship and indulgence of my parents. But In 1991, tragedy struck, literally. My father, who had always been my closest friend and confidant, suffered a massive stroke at the age of 56, which rendered him severely physically, intellectually, and psychiatrically disabled.

He had been an athlete, polymath, and epicurean, a larger than life figure to most who knew him. Now, he was left a cripple who could speak, and cry out in despair, but could no longer think, create, or enjoy life. The impact on our family was enormous, physically and spiritually. Between the strain of caring for a demanding invalid, and the daily realization that what had once been was no longer, we all barely treaded water for years.

Gradually, we found ways to cope. I formed bands, wrote music, and performed sporadically through the mid and late ‘90s. In 1999, I began what have become annual visits to Europe. Most years this has included tours of some of Switzerland’s spotlessly seamy juke joints (where standards are low and, pay is high) with fellow Stuyvesantian Tom Lyons (‘81).

In 2000 I met the love of my life, Ivana Jovic, and my European vacations started including trips to her native Serbia. She has dragged me kicking and screaming toward maturity. I’ve done my part too, making sure to bring her down to my level whenever possible. With many miles still to go, significant milestones have been passed. We began living together in 2002. We were recently married, and now are expecting our first child. I’ve even started doing the kinds of career and life planning that most of my classmates probably got to at least a decade ago.

All of this is a bit daunting for a somewhat past it former new elite. It’s the kind of stuff that I’m sure Gaspar figured out by the time he was 20. But it’s also exciting and inspiring. There have been struggles and disappointments. But there has also been joy, and plenty of good old affirmation of the quotidian. And, when I’ve opened my eyes and paid attention, one commencement exercise after another. As Molly Bloom once said (or was it Marv Albert?), “YES!”