About two months later I received another call saying they had a hole
to fill, but they would have to “judiciously” edit my article to about half its
length to fit, and said that if they couldn’t do that I would have to wait
until a bigger hole in a future edition. I took the chance, signed off on the
release, and a month later the article appeared in the October, 1959 issue
of Seventeen. As a feature in the issue, they even hired an artist to
illustrate, cartoon style, the events that led up to my Cornell demise. I
think one of the most satisfying things I have ever done was telling
Professor Ward his low-graded article had been published.
Not only was the article a success, but the your Letters section of the
December issue of the magazine was dominated by letters from kids
around the country praising the article. I also received several pounds of
fan mail at The University of North Carolina from students simply
addressed with my name at UNC. I later was told that the magazine, itself,
had also directly received many letters that, regrettably, they had thrown
away, so I never saw any of them.
Needless to say, this case history was used in the class taught by my
professor at Cornell right up to his recent retirement, as an outstanding
example of how to succeed in creative writing. It was headlined why i
Busted CoLLege. For those inclined to read this, my first major piece of
confessional journalism, I have reprinted it, warts and all, but with
enduring pride along with student comments in Appendix A in this book.
As the saying goes, when you have a lemon, make lemonade.
Of special note was the letter published in the December issue of
Seventeen from Cornell Associate Dean Rollin L. Perry, which read: “I
want to say how much I enjoyed the article by Roy H. Park, Jr. I was very
close to Roy and his situation here at Cornell and believe he has done a
straightforward and sincere job of writing of his experience. Nothing but
good can come from such honest reporting.”
CHAPTER 6: A SECOND CHANCE
No question that 1957 was a memorable year in my life. After I busted
out of Cornell, I buckled down at UNC to face the real world and started
out on a hard-driving course that changed my life and times. While other
teenagers, students and otherwise, were listening to music that led them in
directions I began to dislike, I was listening to a different drummer and
walking a narrow path of my own.
I arrived in Chapel Hill as a sophomore in 1958. I lost track of what my
father was up to, since I was concentrating heavily on making my marks in
college. And during this first year at UNC, my father was intent on
making sure I had my nose to the grindstone. One of the ground rules that
