WHERE WE WERE, scattered around the Arts Quad, the

men and women of Simon Straight College, Class of

proud

71: a

thousand gowns casually smoking joints and playing Frisbee with

their mortarboards as the parents shook hands under the trees.

In the 93~ heat my own gown felt like a horse blanket but I d

have sooner set myself on fire than lowered the zipper that was

gnawing my Adam s apple. After three generations of teamsters,

cabbies and mailmen, the Kellers had finally scored for a college

graduate. I was the happy ending to our private little American

Everyman play. I had worked construction every summer, was in

hock up to my ass with student loans, and with all that my father still

wound up paying through the nose, but that was the way it was. Four

years earlier, we had sat down with my three acceptance letters and

decided that if we were going to do it up, we would do it up right. I

could have gone to Fordham University on a half-scholarship or

C.C.N.Y. for free, but from where we were coming, a Simon Straight

car sticker was priceless.