[Culturechat] Education in the northeast

[Vance Roy]

Is it only me that seems to always hear New Englanders bring up the
topic of "Where did you go to school?" in the first   minutes of a
conversation with a stranger?

In the South (always capitalized), one wants to know three things about
a stranger. "Where are you from?", "Where did you go to school?", and
"Have you found a home church yet?". The first is curiosity because most
folks talk funny to Southerner's ears. The second is asked only because
in football or basketball season, we like to know who to hate and who to
love. The third is typical Bible Belt Babble.

In Yankeeland, the first thing usually out of the mouth in that thwarted
tongue is something to let you know that the person or his relatives or
both, went to this school or that. Such as, "When I was at Brown", or
when my child graduated from Smith". Then the inevitable, "Where did you
go to school?". Now, I have a daughter who is a Cornell grad. Wonderful
school, and even though obscene in cost, it gave me the feeling that I
had gotten my money's worth. The thing is, these people up here in NE
seem to think that it makes one a better person, if one has graduated
from a "prestige" school. That seems to be the sign of quality. Now,
come on, haven't we all known absolute Dweebs that are Harvard grads, etc.?

Not long ago, we were in BOS attending a wedding. At the reception, we
were seated around a table of eight or so. Some delightful folks and
some average or below, Yankee Doodles. A lady from "New Joisey" had been
eyeing me for awhile. I have no delusions of grandeur, and she was no
doll, so I didn't know what to think. Then she spit it out. "Is that a
Penn tie you have on?" Well, it so happened that my tie was a nice one
from a shop in Luzern, so I said "no". Then, here it came. "Where did
you go to school?" In my most exaggerated drawl, I laid out, "Maamm, I
went to Tennessee, and you don't get a tie there; you get a nice set of
Bibb overalls when you graduate." This lady was amused to the point of
impending incontinence and immediately grabbed her husband to tell him
about the Tennessee overalls.

I remember how, the first time I was in BOS in 1968, I remarked at what
a snow job the medical folks had done on the Bostoneese. If Mass General
Hospital said spit, everyone puckered up. Wonder what they would have
thought had they known that the acting chief of the division had done a
year of his training in Tennessee because at that time, the training in
BOS was only accredited for three instead of four years? I remember a
friend who interned after graduation in Memphis in BOS. Some of those
Harvard and Yale boys looked at him as a member of a third world country
until he got their attention as a smart guy.

I suppose the point of all this blather is that a person's worth is not
measured by where he went to school. Some Yanks have yet to grasp that.
-- 
Vance C. Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch