The seeds had been sown in the summer of 1968 and in the killing fields of Viet Nam, but the scent of the revolution of spring 1970 was not yet in the air. However, it was an exceptionally warm early February day in Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina) and ,after six cold and lonely winters of boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, it seemed like spring to me, as I stepped barefoot onto the balcony of the women’s floor of Project Hinton. I had been an absolute misfit at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire where New York and New England elites sent their sons to prepare for the Ivies and toughen them up in the harsh New Hampshire winter. I loved body surfing in cool water on warm beaches in southern California and where ever I could find a wave.
I persisted through six brutal winters with seasonal depression (SAD), split between California and New England cultures. My ADHD (undiagnosed at the time) was incompatible with New England manners so the only association that would take me at school was the Scientific Association. I applied to the Missionary Society with the plan that I might volunteer at the nearby mental hospital to help people but my application was rejected. I was a fish out of water at St. Paul’s.
Carolina alumni like to call the campus the “southern part of heaven”. I don’t expect to see the brutalist architecture of Hinton James dorm anywhere close to heaven, but after six years of all boys school the co-ed Project Hinton was like dying and going to heaven to me. There was a common area where students socialized 20 hours a day. The conversation was relaxed, but intellectual. There was an ongoing bridge game which I occasionally dropped into and faked knowing what I was doing. I had enough math skills to get away with faking it. I actually fit in at Project Hinton. And there were beautiful and brilliant young women such as Elizabeth Anania, who was dating my friend Joe from St. Paul’s. I had female friends, a big step up from boys school, but there was no magic.
Then I stepped onto the balcony of the tenth floor to visit a friend’s room and looked into the eyes of a student I had never seen before. Her eyes were dark and piercing with an intensity I had never seen before. I stopped in my tracks. There was a flow of emotional power between us in those few seconds when our eyes first met that hit me. However, I was surprisingly not tongue tied or nervous. I felt perfectly at ease talking to her.
She had been the top student in her North Carolina small town high school. The day she turned 18 she took the GED exam at UNC. After she took the exam she got an offer of immediate admission to Chapel Hill, which was under pressure from the Feds for sex discrimination. She never graduated from high school but she got a highly unusual letter from the GED examiners congratulating her on her exceptional performance on the exam.
The woman in the housing office was horrified when she said she wanted to be in Project Hinton, the experimental co-ed dorm. However, she insisted that was exactly what she wanted. As the winner of the title “most intellectual” for her class, in a small southern town where that was an insult, she wanted to be in a place where intellectualism was desirable.
The incredible thing is that within minutes I felt like I could trust her and that she understood me. I am a very untrusting person. I have never felt that way about anyone else ever. I still feel that way fifty years later. We have had an amazing journey together. Please note that we both dealt with extremely difficult issues, that I am not discussing here, at very young ages, which made it possible for us to understand each other well and stay together all these years. We had an incredible love at first sight but communication, respect and hard work are necessary to maintaining a strong relationship.