<p>A few decades ago, my father managed a small Chrysler plant near Chicago. About half the workers there were Hispanic. My father needed a new foreman, and wanted to promote someone from within his organization. He’d heard this one worker was a Yale man, and decided to interview him for the position.</p>
<p>My father calls him into his office. My father says, “I hear you went to Yale.”</p>
<p>The worker gets very nervous and says, “Yeah, but it was no big deal. Back in Cuba I got caught stealing a bicycle, and the judge sent me to yale for 6 months.”</p>
<p>that’s funny bc in the beginning of the year, we had orientation and one of the stupid icebreaker questions was “you are in jail. why?” and one of the guys i know said “Bc i am very lucky”</p>
<p>I have a funny Yale story that one of my bio teachers tells (and has told for 30 years).</p>
<p>When my teacher was an undergrad at Yale, she took a bio course with 200-300 students which met in a large auditorium. One day, the professor was reviewing some material before an exam…no new information, so everyone was kind of dozing, including my teacher, who was sitting in the back. Suddenly, midway through the professor’s lecture, a girl sitting in the middle of the room stood up and screamed at the professor, “DO YOU EXPECT US TO BELIEVE THIS?!” The professor (along with the rest of the class) was quite shaken, but before anyone could respond to the girl, a guy sitting next to her reached under his seat, grabbed a pie (not just whipped cream on a plate!) and stuck it in the girl’s face. But that wasn’t it. The guy reached under his seat again, picked up another pie, and ran down an aisle to the front of the room where the professor was standing. He backed the professor into a corner, looming over him with the pie in hand. Just as the guy appeared to prepare to get the professor with the pie, he stuck the pie in HIS OWN face, and he and the aforementioned girl ran from the auditorium, never to be seen again.</p>
<p>Consequently, when my bio teacher reviews concepts, she’ll ask us, “Is this ok with you? Do you believe this?” before continuing.</p>
<p>This is a Harvard story, but I think Yalies would enjoy it more than Harvard folks.</p>
<p>Back in the 1970’s I played on the basketball team at now-defunct Leicester Junior College in Leicester, MA (enrollment: 230, median combined math/verbal SATs: ~402). It was a haven for backwoods folks from Massachusetts and 4th-quartile reclaimation projects from New Jersey. Its only claim to fame was that its sleazy basketball coach somehow managed to land some amazing talent each year.</p>
<p>We were thrilled when the coach told us he’d arranged a pre-season practice game against the Harvard freshmen team. So on a Friday evening in November, most of our student body was in the stands, our 3 (!) cheerleaders were bouncing all over the place, and the players were warming up on the court. And warming up. Still more warming up. Finally we realized the Harvard team had stood us up.</p>
<p>Our coach was really steamed, and the next week he got the Harvard coach to agree to HOST a game between our two schools (hard to believe the word “school” is so imprecise that it could apply to both institutions). The Harvard coach even agreed to provide us food as a peace offering for the previous week’s no-show. So the next Sunday we cruised into Cambridge. This time the Harvard team condescended to actually show up. We played two games against them, one after the other, so that even the guys at the end of our bench could say that they’d played against Harvard. I’m assuming that was the reason–I’m pretty sure it wasn’t so that the Harvard guys could someday tell their grandchildren that they had once taken to the hardwood against mighty Leicester Junior.</p>
<p>Here’s the punchline: After the games, somebody from Harvard brought our coach a big box. In it were a bunch of ham sandwiches (kind of insulting that they just ASSUMED we had no Jewish players) on Wonder bread, and a dusty case of room-temperature Fresca that must have been in the back of the pantry since the Johnson administration. Just what 19-year-old kids want to do after playing 3 sweaty hours of basketball…pop open a nice warm Fresca. Mmmm-mmh!</p>