THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NOVEMBER 19, 2023

“BEST IN CLASS”

CRAFTSBURY COMMON, VERMONT – SEPTEMBER 1968

As any preppie of that era could tell you, some aspects of boarding school were to be cherished and some were to be hated.  What I liked most about Sterling School were the surroundings—Vermont at its finest.  The school sat atop a hill and amidst a tiny hamlet consisting of just a few old, white frame houses, a small post office, a town common surrounded by a white, rail fence, and a church of classic New England design.  Just beyond the settlement was a small plateau on which the school maintained a couple of soccer fields.  All around us were the Green Mountains, and to the south behind my dormitory, you could see Mount Mansfield, at 4,395 feet, the highest elevation in Vermont.  The fall foliage was the most spectacular I’d ever seen, and everywhere seemed to be a scene to be captured by an artist.

What I hated most about Sterling School was that it was a million miles from Björn.  How awful, I thought, that he was probably penned up in his kennel all day long except for his daily walk.  But how could I know that he would even be given that release? How much he would love to romp and run and go for long walks in the paradise that surrounded me in Craftbury Common, Vermont! I fantasized about boarding him at one of the surrounding farms, where I could see him every day after classes and run free with him over hill and dale.

Another thing that everyone hated about the place, of course, was the strict code of conduct.  You could barely breathe without bumping into some rule or regulation, the infraction of which would bring a demerit—or two or three, depending on the category of rule or regulation and the severity of the breach.  One rule virtually everyone always obeyed—standing up when a teacher, or “master,” as they were called, entered a classroom.

My first encounter with “the Sterling system” came soon after my arrival.  One of the faculty members had been dispatched to drive the school’s “stretch” Checker station wagon down to Logan Airport in Boston to pick up half a dozen of us freshmen who had flown in from beyond the Northeast.  After the five-and-a-half-hour drive to Craftsbury Common, we and our luggage were dropped off unceremoniously at the dining hall, well past dark.  The kitchen staff had stayed on late to accommodate us, and after a welcome meal, each of us newly arrived greenhorns was paired up with a senior “mentor.”  My mentor introduced himself as “Ray.”

“My dad’s name is Ray,” I said.

“So?” said Ray.  We were not off to a good start.  It deteriorated fast when I struggled to lug my overstuffed duffel bag and a large suitcase from the dining hall to Adams Hall, the dorm that we freshman would share with a few lucky sophomores.  Ray was in no mood to help haul his charge’s baggage, and to reinforce his seniority, he walked ahead and waited for me on the dorm steps.  I was weary from my travels, and as I dragged myself and my belongings toward my new home, I did what would come naturally to any 14-year old in such circumstances:  I cut across the grass.

When I reached the steps, Ray stood with his arms crossed over his blazer and shook his head disapprovingly.  “At Sterling,” he said, “we don’t walk on the grass.”  I had not yet learned to swear.  That would come soon enough.  At the time, though, I was thinking the equivalent of “FUCKING ASSHOLE.”

Ray showed me to my room on the ground floor. My assigned roommate had not arrived.  Like most of the kids who would fill Adams Hall, he would be dropped off the next day.  After my “mentor” had given me the low-down on the “dos and don’ts” of Sterling School, he left me to my own devices.

I sat on the edge of my bed, sank my head into my hands and wondered what in the world had happened to me.  I was a million miles from home.  I wouldn’t be going home until Christmas, which seemed like eons away.  From my suitcase, I pulled out the Instamatic snapshot of Björn I’d carefully packed inside a notebook.  My eyes filled with tears as I fingered the photo.  I was not homesick, but already I missed Björn.  I couldn’t bear the thought that I wouldn’t get to see him until late December. I couldn’t countenance the probability that no one else at home much cared about him.

*                      *                      *

A pay phone hung on the wall at the end of the upstairs hallway of Adams Hall. About the only time you could take or place a call was between the 9:30 p.m. bell signaling the end of evening study hall in Simpson Hall, five minutes away from Adams Hall, and 10:30 lights out.  Good luck.  Either someone else was using the phone or, if you dashed pell-mell out of study hall and got to the phone ahead of everyone else, you’d have to put up with someone standing three feet away signaling subtly or not-so-subtly to “make it short.”  You had no privacy, and given the level of rowdiness during that rare hour of “free time,” you could find it hard to hear and be heard on that old pay phone.

It was mid-September, and we freshmen had pretty well adapted to our new home and routine.  All of us except David Fineman, who one night, after everyone else had fallen sound asleep, used that pay phone to call a taxi in St. Johnsbury, the nearest town of any consequence.  A cab came and according to the grape-vine, drove him all the way home to Connecticut.  In any event, Mother had written and asked me to call home once a week, and suggested Wednesday evenings after my study hall.

Amidst the raucous surroundings one Wednesday evening, I lifted the receiver and dialed the operator to place my first call home.  Before the rotary could finish its turn, an obnoxious classmate with a towel over his arm, coming from the communal wash room, saw me and stopped.

“You callin’ home Nilsson? To Minn-ahh-so-duh?”  I returned the receiver to its cradle.  “Didn’t know you had telephones back there in injun country.”  As I glared at him, he gestured with his hands as if beating a drum.  “BOOM-boom-boom-boom, BOOM-boom-boom-boom.”  To my disgust, he laughed at his mockery.  To my relief, he continued on down the hall, snapping his towel at some other target of his obnoxious ways.

I grabbed the receiver again and dialed the operator.  “How can I help you?” she said.

“I’d like to make a collect call to Six one two, H A one, five three two six.”

“Your name?”

“Eric.”

“Station-to-station or person-to-person?”

“Station-to-station.”  In her letter suggesting the call schedule, Mother had given explicit instructions.  “You won’t need to call ‘person-to-person,’” she’d written.  “That’s for when you want to speak only to a specific individual. It’s more expensive than ‘station-to-station,’ but there’s no connection and therefore, no charge, if the person you are calling doesn’t answer.”

The operator put the call through, and I waited two or three rings for Mother—it was always Mother who answered the phone—to pick up.

“I have a call for anyone from Eric.  Will you accept the charge?”

“Yes, of course,” Mother said.

“Go ahead,” said the operator.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, Eric. Let me get your father.” I could hear her muffled voice yell, “Ray! It’s Eric. You want to get on the other phone?”  She then said to me, “So, how have things been going since last week?”

“Okay,” I said. “I got back my first paper in English and . . .”

“Hello, Eric.”  Dad’s voice interrupted.

“Hi, Dad.  How’s Björn?”

“How are your studies coming along?” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he was ignoring me. “So is he behaving himself?”  I decided to give Dad the benefit of the doubt.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, he’s been a pretty good dog. Barks now and again, but he’s learning when I tell him to stop.”

The noise around me seemed to dissipate instantly. “You’re not using the hose on him, are you Dad?”

“No. That would be cruel.”

I felt immense relief. If Dad could be impatient and got angry once in a while, by no measure was he a cruel person. His hose attack on that first night after Björn’s arrival was a shock. Jenny and I had abandoned Björn, which was its own form of cruelty, and Dad had been left assuming responsibility, which, I realized, was generous of him. Without words, I nonetheless forgave him.

“You started to say you got your first English paper back.” Mother said to change subject.

“Yeah, I did, and Master Longfellow really liked it. I got an ‘A,’ and he wrote, ‘best in class’ on the top of the page.

“What was the paper about?”

“About Björn—how he wound up in our family.”

“I’d like to read it,” said Dad. “Maybe you can send it with your next letter home?”

“Sure,” I said. I couldn’t believe my ears.

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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson