This morning, while doing some genealogy research, an old photograph appeared in my feed. It was a page from a Jersey City State College yearbook showing the Cuban Cultural Club.
The first person on the left with the shiny black hair‑dome (third row from the bottom) is me.
I spent just one year at Jersey City State College. By then I had been living on my own for a couple of years, and money was always tight. I couldn’t afford to continue school but, if I’m being truthful, money wasn’t the only reason.
I was distracted, socially awkward, and a little lost. Not lost in the sense of drugs, trouble, or other bad habits. I just didn’t have a particularly good sense of where I was going, and my quiet, introverted, rather solitary nature didn’t help.
In 1979, working hard at any job seemed, to my naive mind, a perfectly reasonable path to eventual success. As the son of immigrants, I understood that hard work was how you made your way. Back then, a high school education and a good union job could still provide a decent living—and perhaps enough security to pursue some of the futures I imagined for myself.
And I imagined quite a few. Some were pretty wild—making scientific discoveries and contributing something that would help the world, becoming a famous writer, making a living from art, working in the field away from people as a forest ranger or a paleontologist, or simply living beside a lake, like Thoreau in Walden, hiking, fishing, and enjoying the beauty and solitude.
I had plenty of dreams, even if I wasn’t entirely sure how to get to any of them. But I believed hard work might open those doors, and at that time, it all seemed possible.
So I worked. A lot. Mostly small jobs that, I now realize, didn’t require me to deal with people too much. I was trying to live a life and “make it,” even if the actual steps to getting there weren’t clear to me.
Of course, things changed. The path I had thought would find me became uncertain, and I found myself playing catch-up. I took mail-order classes and other courses whenever I could find something affordable and flexible enough to fit around my jobs, while keeping my contact with large groups of people to a minimum. Making a living wasn’t optional. I had been borderline homeless for a few weeks when I first left home, and I wasn’t looking to repeat that.
I made friends at various jobs who, fortunately for me, simply refused to leave me alone.
At work I also had to deal with customers, answer questions, explain things, and sometimes handle difficult situations. There wasn’t much choice but to learn.
I became more comfortable talking with people and eventually better at expressing myself. Maybe even good enough to give the impression that I was someone quite different from that quiet young man in the photograph.
But that isn’t really what happened. He’s still here. The introspective, retiring fellow who would often rather be alone with his thoughts or absorbed in a good book hasn’t gone anywhere. I’ve just learned how to step outside of him when life requires it, and my beautiful family has helped anchor me to the world.
It’s strange to look at an old photograph and only vaguely remember the place and the people, but vividly recall how uncertain I was about almost everything. I’m grateful for those friends, those jobs, and all the small interactions that helped me find my footing then—and for the family that keeps me rooted now.
I went looking into my family’s history this morning and, quite by accident, found a little piece of myself.
For the original context, view the complete yearbook page, including the club description and the students’ names.
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