You Have To Walk Before You Run
I was talking to my husband about life. We do that sometimes before falling asleep. I was recalling my time at Foxcroft and my journey from my small town, North Braddock Pennsylvania.
When I was 12 , A Better Chance was touring under funded school districts looking for students to offer scholarships to prestigious boarding schools, college prepatory schools and excellent high schools across the country. Teachers from these schools would select their brightest students to take the SSAT. The schools would select whom they wanted to attend and what kind of scholarship would be offered to them. My neighbor was chosen to be a part of the ABC family and left the following school year for Northfield Mount Vernon. I admired her and wanted to follow in her footsteps. The next year when I was 13, myself and several of my friends were selected to take the SSAT test in the fall. 5 of us were chosen later that school year for ABC. Foxcroft chose me. I was overjoyed. I remember heading for the school tour the following April. I was all alone. I can’t remember who took me to the airport that day. My parents didnt come with me for the tour. Perhaps the entire idea of all of this was surreal to them. I remember the wave of excitement and fear for my very first time on an airplane . My knees felt as though they were buckling beneath me, the butterflies in my belly, as I walked down the jet bridge to board the Northwest Orient airplane to Washington DC. I remember looking at the brightly colored interior of camouflage orange, yellow and brown and thinking , this is truly ugly interior! Why? Even then my artist’s eye and fashion sense knew that wasn’t right. The irony of all this is that I ended up working for the airline and loved every minute of it . Life is funny that way. Not funny as in haha but funny as in peculiar.
When I arrived I was met at the gate at Washington National Airport by my hostess and an adult staff member. You could do that in 1974. Walk straight to any flight’s gate. I was scheduled to tour the school, stay in the dormitory, take meals with the students and sit in on classes. This under the pretense of me interviewing them when in actuality I had absolutely no say in this. I had been chosen. Period. I loved the feel of all of this though. I could see myself here in this lifestyle. Foxcroft School! Airplanes! Travel! Academia!!! Yes, yes and yes!!!Looking back I realize the huge gift that I was given. I was chosen to attend one of the best private schools in the United States with the ultimate scholarship opportunity. The scholarship that I received was phenomenal. I received tuition, room, board, books and materials, uniforms, transportation to and from Pittsburgh to D.C plus 3 additional flights per school year, 3 extra curricular actives per trimester at one of the best college predatory schools in the country. At first I was homesick. When I returned to visit home at Thanksgiving , I realized that I wasn’t the same person anymore. I had already changed in just that short amount of time. When I returned back to Foxcroft after the holiday I had a new desire to succeed and embrace this awesome opportunity. I joined all the clubs that I could. There was an entire art wing at the school. I practically lived there. I spent hours in the incredible library pouring myself into my studies. My nose always in a book. We had one TV in each dorm so there wasn’t much time spent watching television. But them again I really never watched much tv before either. I participated 100 percent in school activities. I embraced the full experience. I spent a mini term in Spain my junior year that literally changed my life. When we were given the PSAT test and then the SAT test I did extremely well. I won the regional award for excellent for the East coast because of my test scores and was accepted into every college that had I applied, four of eight being Ivy League. I settled on CMU because of mom (another story for another day) even though I wanted so badly to go to Duke! I was even offered a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania. I was only 17 when I graduated from high school. My college years were tumultuous and uncertain. I needed guidance. I will talk about those years too moving forward in my story.
I was told by one of my English teachers at Foxcroft that my life would be on a trajectory only moving upwards. He wasn’t wrong. But… you have to crawl before you walk; you have to walk before you run; and you have to run before you fly. You also stumble and fall down a lot along the way. I have the scars to prove it.
