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FRANCISCO PEREZ-ABREU Transition in New England Being new at a school can be difficult, more so if the school is a boarding school and the new student has never lived under those conditions. If the school also happens to be in a foreign country, then the transition becomes a major hurdle. That was my situation when I started at Monson Academy in September of 1956, freshly arrived from Havana, Cuba at the age of thirteen. Fortunately, the United States was not entirely new to me. My mother had moved from Cuba to New York City two years earlier, intent on pursuing a career as a social worker in this country after completing her studies back home and in Venezuela. Subsequently I had visited her during the next two summers and had been looking forward to moving here also. The move finally took place late in the summer of 1956. A few weeks later, we were on our way to Monson, traveling by train from New York to Springfield, Massachusetts. At Springfield we were met by the school headmaster, Dr. Rogers, who then drove us to Monson, as he did several times over the next four years. After my mother had helped me settle in at the dorm and left for New York, I rested a while, then got dressed for dinner and joined other students walking down the few blocks to the dining hall. I have no distinct recollection of that first dinner other than overhearing someone say, with a note of amazement in his voice, that there was a kid from Cuba at the school. Over the next few weeks, I was completely caught up in the challenges of my new life. These ranged from the daily scholastic grind to living in a dorm with a roommate and some twenty other guys. Several experiences stand out from this period. The first was being subjected early on, as were the other beginning students, to an I.Q. test. My immediate reaction to this was one of outrage, since I considered it grossly unfair to have my intelligence evaluated in a language other than my own. (At this point I should mention that although I had been studying English since first grade, it had been with an emphasis on writing rather than on speaking; upon arriving at Monson, my overall command of the new language was far from what it would be in a few months.) Still incensed after finishing the test, I marched over to Dr. Rogers' office to register my complaint. In characteristic fashion, he listened patiently and assured me that if the test results were not in line with my future scholastic performance, another test could be arranged at a later time. Normally that sort of reassurance would not have been enough for me. However, he seemed so sympathetic to my problem that I left the office feeling that it would be resolved fairly. Another incident from that time which I recall vividly was my first sight of snow. Having grown up in a tropical country, snow was for me something exotic and appealing, experienced so far only through movies and photographs. So when I woke up early one October morning and looked out the window to see everything covered in white, my excitement was such that I immediately got dressed and went outside. I then proceeded to run my hands through the marvelous white stuff, tasting it, rubbing it on my cheeks and making snowballs that I would throw at every tree within range. Unfortunately, over the next few weeks we were bombarded with many, many inches of the marvelous white stuff, and my reaction soon changed from excitement to resigned acceptance, specially after being assigned shoveling duties on one wintry weekend morning. A third early Monson Academy experience which has remained with me was my initial involvement with the Glee Club. Back in Havana, I had shared a strong interest in operatic singing with several of my classmates. We would spend hours discussing the great singers past and present, playing recordings and even trying to imitate some of our idols (no mean feat for kids many of whose voices were still changing). So now it appeared only natural for me to join the Monson Glee Club. Unfortunately, what had been normal and natural a few months earlier had since become a source of anxiety. (Culture shock lodging itself in the larynx??) Indeed, even though my voice had already passed its pubescent stage, I seemed unable to make a musical sound when auditioning for Mrs. Williams, the Glee Club director at the time, and it took many attempts that evening to convince her that I could carry a tune. I did join the Glee Club that year but eventually dropped out and did not join again until my last year at Monson. (Oddly enough, many years later I became an operatic baritone with twenty-nine leading roles to my credit; Mrs. Williams would have been dumfounded.) Meanwhile the months went by, one semester flowing into the other. By then I was well settled into life at the Academy, helped no doubt by having attended a military school in Havana during the previous four years. (Not that in Monson we paraded up and down the street in uniform and saluted each other with martial precision. But my experiences as a cadet did make it easier to adapt to the fairly strict regime at Monson, particularly in regard to schoolwork and daily routines.) As far as dorm life and school sports were concerned, I was somewhat reclusive, partly owing to the natural reticence of an adolescent learning to function in a new environment. For one thing, there was no one at the dorm to share my interest in opera and classical music. On the other hand, most of the communal goings-on, such as rushing down for a quick card game or a cigarette before lights out, did not appeal to me. Regarding sports, I preferred the individual challenges of tennis and bowling to the exertions of football, soccer and basketball. At any rate, word of my secluded ways must have gotten around, for Dr. Rogers called me into his office one day, obviously worried that the one foreign student in the school might be suffering from loneliness and alienation. After a preliminary inquiry as to how I felt at Monson, which I answered positively, he pointed out that I was not involved in many activities. Even on weekends, he went on, other than attending school games (compulsory, anyway) or the entertainment provided by the school (movies, lectures, etc.), I seemed to prefer staying in my room. Was I OK?, he asked. Was I making any friends? My schoolwork was good, he admitted, but was I homesick and was there anything he could do to help? I assured him, somewhat defensively, that I was fine. During the week I preferred spending my free time in my room or at the town library, reading magazines and soaking up detective stories and fantasy novels. And on weekends, since I was not allowed to use my record player during the rest of the week, I was very happy to play my LPs when it would not disturb anyone. Eventually I managed to convince him that I was not in the throes of a depression, but to this day I regret not thanking him for his concern, on that occasion and on several others. The school year continued into spring without any major incidents, other than my roommate's complaining to one of the dorm masters that I had threatened to murder him, after I jokingly asked, as we were walking by the town cemetery, if he wanted to stay there. In retrospect the incident was humorous not just because of the misunderstood remark but also because my roommate eventually became a mortician. Another highlight in the latter part of that transitional year was my increasingly bad reputation at the dining hall, inspired not by bizarre utterances or digestive disorders but rather by my abysmal inadequacy as a waiter, one of the duties assigned to boarding students once or twice a semester. During one particular stint I managed to hit one of the masters on the head with a very full tray. Not long afterwards, I ruined the necktie of another by spilling most of the contents of a milk pitcher on him. Slipping on the hallway between the dining room and the kitchen was not uncommon among the novice "waiters", but I had the distinction of doing it with a tray full of water pitchers, followed by a very discreet attempt to clean up the mess using toilet paper instead of asking for a mop. Soon both spring and the school year drew to a close. With hindsight I now realize how in that year I went through a major crossroad in my life, dealing at the same time with the anxieties of adolescence and with the intricacies of a different culture. Of course the process was far from over. (Maybe it never really is until the final and inevitable "graduation".) I imagine that in other settings that process could have been smoother, but then again one can say that about many of the experiences that shape us. Overall, Monson Academy was a good place to start my life in this country, a place both sheltered and demanding, rigid and structured but also flexible when necessary. I look back upon my early times there not with nostalgia or regret but with a strange mixture of gratefulness and relief.
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