Page 206 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
because he did not beat the crap out of me—and for other good reasons as well. (I’m not sure why I took the risk of using my fist rather than my arm; as you’ve seen, too many times, my somewhat storied arm was a matter of great pride for me. There is actually a yearbook photograph of me standing behind Morrow Dormitory and cradling a snowball against my leg so as to hide it from one of the campus police. Within some circles I had become a bit famous when, throwing from right behind Morrow, I knocked a soda bottle off the third-story window ledge of Fayerweather Hall, which had to have been at least 20 feet up and 200 feet away. I guess that I was being a bit intemperate—some would say foolhardy—when I reacted to Perry’s missile, but no harm done.)
• George Bassos became a Beta (a member of Beta Theta Pi), which was known as the animal house on campus. Thus, he was not a “nice- guy jock,” although, in fact, he was a both a jock, as was virtually every other Beta, and a very nice guy. He was also neither a preppy nor a WASP (a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). Of Greek descent, George had gone to a small New England high school where he was an accomplished defensive lineman. He also played a fierce game of rugby, which he learned from some of the preppy jocks (who were usually WASPs). He was at least six feet two inches tall and must have weighed 230 pounds, which was not big by NCAA Division I standards but was huge in the context of Amherst. He spoke with a Boston accent, something else that was new to me, and he had a reputation as being a very tough guy. George was in my English 1 class and took a serious interest in the subject matter and, for some reason, in me. He didn’t speak much during class. We always spoke after class, and his enthusiasm for the course was impressive. I learned a lot from George.
• Richard Rubinger was from Mamaroneck, and he was friends with Joe Chassler, a fact that for some reason I didn’t find out until 2015. I wish that I had known. They moved in very different circles but
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