On a few occasions, my life has been changed by the action,
work, or example of one person. The next few blogs in the Turning Points series
will describe three such people and moments that changed the direction of my
life before the age of 30, helping establish, for better or for worse, the
foundation on which my career and personal life have been based. They are, in
chronological order, David Flaherty, Harvey Scribner, and Allen Tough.
David Flaherty was a Canadian and a member of the history
faculty at Princeton University, where I studied. I first encountered him in my
sophomore year as the instructor of a preceptorial in an American History
course I was taking. Precepts are a Princeton feature. In addition to the
standard two lectures every week, you were required to sit in a small group,
usually of about 10 undergraduates, with a professor and discuss the week's
lectures and readings. Precepts were a combination of "nowhere to run, nowhere
to hide" and "stand and deliver" all rolled into one.
As a sophomore, I was pretty full of myself; super-charged
with energy, heady with the experience of becoming a cheerleader and being asked
to join a singing group, and not, shall we say, “fully inclined” to do the
tedious work that studying demanded. At a precept in the fall of 1965, my combination
of wise guy and poor preparation were especially obvious. And after about 30 minutes,
David Flaherty asked me to leave the precept and wait to speak with him when it
was completed.
I remember waiting in the hallway outside the room,
anticipating the tongue-lashing discipline that awaited me. But I had no idea
of what was to come.
When the precept adjourned, I went back into the room,
only to be met by Flaherty inside the doorway. He grabbed me by the shoulders
and held me against the wall, his face inches from mine, dark with frustration
and anger. "You," he growled, "have talent and ability. Do not
waste them the way so many do on trivialities and silliness. You can do
something with your life if you choose to. Don't ever again waste my time the
way you did today!" And with that, he left me standing there and walked
away.
By the time I graduated in 1968, David had served as my
Qualifying Paper and Thesis Advisor, giving me unrelenting criticism, helping
me learn how to research and write, and providing me with his friendship, all
at the same time. My grades went from C’s to A’s and I graduated Magna Cum Laude.
But that is not the important point. More important than
the history he taught me, David Flaherty taught me not to run with the crowd
and to dare to take myself seriously.
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