Saratoga News

Point of View

Carl Heintze

Stanford freshman advises Chelsea across the years

There can't be anyone in the U.S.--well, at least in the Bay Area--who doesn't know that Chelsea Clinton has just started college at Stanford.

It seems to be a really big deal, but I'm not sure why. I've been trying to get some perspective on this media event because I once started at Stanford, too. Of course, that was some time ago and there wasn't a Secret Service man parked outside my door, among other things, but I can say that registering at Stanford for the first time is an experience Chelsea and I now share--probably about the only experience we share.

You may wonder how, after all these years, I can remember my registration at what is now laughingly known as The Farm (better it should be known as The Industrial Park).Well, the truth is I don't--or wouldn't, if it weren't for the fact that my mother lovingly saved all the letters I wrote home and then also lovingly turned them over to me.

I've been stuck with them ever since. I suppose I should have thrown them away, but I couldn't bear to do so, mainly because she had taken the time and energy to keep them all, presuming, I suppose, that I would one day become famous as someone who had experienced the same thing as the president's daughter. (Some presumption.)

Whatever the reason, I have kept them all these years in a big manila envelope, where they gather dust and slowly turn yellow. So, Chelsea, let me tell you that where you have one roommate, I had two. Well, actually, it was more like I had five, because when I was at Stanford all freshmen men lived in Encina Hall, all 550 of us. It was a good preparation for being a private in the Army, an experience that came later and which I hope you, Chelsea, never have to share, even after the Army allegedly cleans up its sexual harassment.

We slept on the equivalent of army cots, shared a table on which to study, had to go down the hall to the bathroom--quite a way down the hall, as I recall--and soon found the only safe place to study was in the library.

We ate at Encina Commons, although not well, and walked almost everywhere on campus. Most of us were too poor to afford bicycles. The rest of the time, as I recall, we didn't study much, we just talked--and talked and talked.

One of my roommates, now a retired San Diego State professor, talked mostly about women. The other, who became a chemist, didn't talk much, and when he did it didn't make much sense to the rest of us.

The other thing I glean from my letters is that I had a lot of colds and sore throats--or thought I had--and I never had much money. Or I worried a lot about money. That seemed to be the principal item about which I wrote home.

I overcame this handicap, it would seem, by sorting books in the Hoover Library and by washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto. I got 65 cents an hour for working in the library. I got fed at the Chinese restaurant, but oddly enough I never got any Chinese food. The owner thought it was too expensive, so we ate the American menu.

The only other things I can recall from reading this sort of semi-diary are that there were a lot of football games and we all went to all of them and that we (my San Diego State former professor and I) once were hauled before the resident assistants' board because we were tossing "fireballs"--lighted balls of crumpled-up newspaper--out the window at passing sophomores.

The RAs considered that to be hazardous to everyone's health--and they were probably right--and so sentenced us to some time doing voluntary labor at the Children's Convalescent Home.

One other thing I remember about being a freshman. It was like coming from a small pond where everyone knew who I was--the small town in which I grew up--into a large lake where I was quickly anonymous. No one at Stanford knew who I was and no one seemed to care. It took about three more years to get over this, and it wasn't until I was a senior that I began to think I might amount to something more than one of those 550 guys with whom I started college.

I have no idea why I had so many sore throats, but I suspect a lot of them were psychosomatic. So if you get a sore throat, Chelsea, don't worry; it's just part of being away from home.

If you get homesick, you can email Dad, something I couldn't do. You can do that if you need money, too.

I don't know how much extra cash he has these days, but you can try. So there you have it, Chelsea, the sum total of my advice to you as a new Stanford freshperson.

But as to becoming anonymous, something I accomplished early on as a freshman, I can't help you much. Talk to your dad about that. Maybe he has an idea or two.

[ Back to Contents Page | Saratoga News Home Page | Archives ]