* An Avuncular Pain in the Ass: The Anti-Yale

                            A Junior Again

I have stuck with the class of 2014 through three of their four years  at Yale, posting regularly on the Yale Daily News posting board.  One estimate from reporter Ava Kaufman,  was that last April my total number of YDN posts was 1,965. 

Why did I stick with them?

I was surprised in the first year, 2008/9 when Sophomore Jeff Gordon wrote an essay about The Anti -Yale for his English class entitled For God, for Country and For Yale 

But that isn’t why I stuck with it.

The sudden spate of tragedies at Yale reminded me of my own experience at Kent State  in 1970 when four students were murdered by Ohio National Guardsmen during a student protest.

That’s why I thought I stuck with the class.

But that isn’t it either.

I think it’s more of an avuncular thing.  Isn’t that a great word?  It means “having the characteristics of an uncle.”

I guess I feel that way about this class.

They probably see me as a loudmouth, obnoxious, opinionated uncle who they would be glad to be rid of.

And maybe I am.

But I suspect that forty years from now, some of this four-year group of Yale undergraduates  may see it a bit differently.

They may say (no guarantee they WILL say) “You know, for all his being a pain in the ass, that guy PK engaged us, every step of the way on our four-year journey," if I make it through next year.

It was like he wasn’t just The Anti-Yale, he was the ‘antithesis’  to our thesis, and now decades later we’ve arrived at a synthesis.

Well, I’d like to think so anyway.

But I won’t be around to find out.

Unless I live to 109

Godforbid.