Memoir Excerpt: Recruiting Visit

I've been writing a memoir about my family and my athletic career.  I'm not sure who's going to care about it, but this is a project that my wife and have been talking about for several years now.  Basically since my dad died.  In theory, we're going to sync our stories and talk about how we complete each other, how athletics and our marriage saved our lives.

Me and Sally in the Mess Hall during my 20th Reunion.

My half of this thing has grown to 55,000 words over about 150 pages.  This is the fifth book I've written, or the ninth if you count graphic novels, so at this point, I feel like I've got a system.  I started, as I normally do, by trying to tell a story to my kids.  Indeed, that may well be the future of this project; if it becomes little more than family lore, I'll be plenty satisfied.  I make it a goal to write for me, and if others have a use for my work, that's a bonus.  One way or another, writing is ultimately a lonely endeavor.

And yet, it helps to have a target audience.  Writing to someone, writing for specific effect, these things help frame the story.  It's easier to pick out what's important if you know who you're talking to and why.  Lately I've been writing to a hypothetical West Point candidate, a rising high school senior thinking about whether or not he or she wants to attend the U.S. Military Academy.  I don't know what such a person's life might hold, but I was them, I remember it well, and this is what happened to me.  Maybe that has some value.  I hope that it does.

West Point is a lifetime commitment.  Not because you'll necessarily serve in uniform for a lifetime--I certainly did not--but because your connection to The Long Gray Line is eternal.  I was on the phone with my old roommate just last night because he needed to talk, and that's what we do.  The guy has been there for me more times than I can count.  I love that son of a bitch.

That's life.  That's West Point.

I don't have a lot of family.  I have my wife and my classmates.  But you know what?  We're doing okay.

The excerpt below is the story of my recruiting trip.  To Harvard.