Letter to the Editor: Frank, 12/12/24

by Frank

Dear Editor,

I will admit when I first got sent the image of the La Salle branded alcohol, you were the first person to come to my mind. For all the reasons you've already covered here, it struck me as cruelly hypocritical considering the moral turpitude with which they charged you. I think of the "friends of Joe K***" day. At the time, the pain and shame and literal money they cost you felt a little like the cost of doing business as a young person; the "man" cracking down one last time as we shifted into adulthood. With the benefit of time and space, the overreach only makes me queasier.

I'm not looking to change your relationship with La Salle. I think your anger is warranted. I'm not even sure what struck a chord with me to respond as a frequent reader of PoYB if a much less frequent contributor. Struck enough of a chord that I felt compelled to do more than comment on said post. I suppose two thoughts:

I spent a very long time feeling like "I" had let "La Salle" down. For varied reasons, by the end of my third semester, I had lost my full scholarship and had to transfer under the cover of night to the school my father was a teacher at, coming back to La Salle for one more semester my "junior year" after getting an associate's degree before flaming out again, and leaving academia behind me for good*. This all happened with me in a state of what could generously be called holding my cards close to my chest, and what could less generously and probably more accurately be called deceiving my friends and outer family as to what was going on with me. Ask any of our La Salle friend group, and I'm sure no one would have a clear idea at any time of what my actual enrollment status was, a fact I used to my advantage to do ALL FOUR YEARS of the college improv group. 

I have a hard time even now talking about that period freely, almost reflexively putting my guard of shame up. I will note that one of, if not the most, admirable traits of the Editor of this blog is his willingness to publicly examine his life through writing and discourse. People truly know where he stands on things, and consistently have in the over 25 years that I've known him. It's taken a LOT of recent talk therapy (no ketamine as of yet) to get me to examine myself honestly and fairly even in private. I suppose my point is it strikes me you were so angry at for how La Salle treated you for so long, and now are in a place where it's become less binary. I've been so angry at myself for "ruining" my college experience for so long, and only now give the nineteen-year-old version of myself grace, and also free myself of any obligation to do right by an institution. I was bound by holding a successful commencement in esteem, an outsider looking in at what and who I was supposed to be, and had failed. Only with the clarity of time can I see the successes and failures that lead me to where I am today. The path was the path, and if the path had been different, would I have my family, my friends, my pursuit now of finishing a degree on my own terms? 

I say all this to highlight the irony of my second point: I did a total of four semesters at La Salle of education, and none of them really successfully. I have a degree from a different institution and am currently enrolled in another. So why do I—and I presume will always—think of myself as a Lasallian, and think so FONDLY? The answer is obvious in its simplicity and perhaps my own obtuseness. Even the years I wasn't in class at the school, I was there weekly, if not almost daily. I slept on couches at Woodstock and 19th and LA and YONO more than I slept at my own house. It was my home. The college improv team was the most important thing in my life when I didn't have a lot going on, which turned into performing in the city in my twenties with best friends I had made through that improv team, which led to more comedy, which led to meeting my wife. The Sweet 16 run meant so much to me. Sleeping on couches at La Salle transitioned into sleeping on couches at Melon Terrace. Beerito and Tickets and Theme Parties and Weddings and Babies. The bonds I forged at La Salle have made up my most cherished relationships through my thirties. La Salle is the spoke that brought or kept every single person on this blog into my life.

It just struck me with clarity when the Editor had such an adversarial reaction to the institution: why didn't I? And it occured to me that I have the unique perspective of memories of La Salle being about absolutely everything BUT the institution. My La Salle is all the friendships, all the love, all the growth, and none of the diploma, none of the calls for money, none of the resume filler. Even the classes I did go to and enjoyed, all the meetings with parents and advisors and counselors begging me to withdraw rather than irrevocably damage my GPA with failures, all the unmet expectations, all the under-resolved guilt and shame... none of it comes to top of mind when I think of my "college" experience. The family I made does. It's beyond cliché to speak of the friends we made along the way, and yet here we are. La Salle University will be gone someday soon, weighed down by economic absurdities, backwards religious views, and geographic realities. But my La Salle lives on. I continue to cherish having my core group and your families in my life, and hope for many more to come. I will be forever grateful that my path took me through that institution, and I think I got more than the value of their degree (though the degree certainly would have been nice.)

I realize as I reach the end that I have no real compelling or interesting points to make about your post. It just made me feel strongly, I valued your insight and vulnerability, and felt compelled to share with you. I guess "Fuck the Cynical and Rotted La Salle Hard Iced Tea Forever"  really could have been a comment. Oh well. Thank you for continuing to make PoYB a place where I feel connected to friends far and near, and avoid sending emails to incompetent colleagues.

Frank F******

PYoB contributor

LaSallian Non-Grad 2012