Tragedy strikes.
In 1994, I ran for President of Manchester Community College’s Student Council.
It wasn’t the best decision of my life.
I was already managing a McDonald’s restaurant full-time and serving as President of the National Honor Society. I worked part-time in the school’s writing center, helping students with their work, and I was studying like hell to achieve academic excellence.
I eventually was named to USA Today’s Academic All-American Team and became a finalist for the Truman Scholarship, all of which led to full scholarship offers from Yale, Wesleyan, and Trinity.
Moving on to a four-year school might have been impossible without those scholarships, and I knew it. I needed to do exceptionally well in every class without exception.
Despite all of this, I ran for President, mainly because my friend Chris was running for Vice President and asked me to join him on the ticket. Since Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates weren’t running together on a single ticket back then, he thought we might have a chance to win if we approached the election strategically.
I agreed. It sounded like a great plan. Despite having no time, I plastered the campus with posters, shook lots of hands, debated my opponents, and delivered stump speeches.
It didn’t work. I lost by 14 votes to a woman named Jane, who failed to show up for the next semester. Thus, Angela—the VP candidate who had beaten Chris—became the new President.
However, the Treasurer-elect also failed to return the following semester, so Angela asked me to fill the role. She also asked Chris to join the Student Council as an Executive Senator.
Not exactly the president and vice president, but it was enough to get us an office on campus, overnight trips to Washington DC and New York City for leadership summits, and most importantly, our own computers on campus.
In 1994, no one owned a laptop, and smartphones did not exist. The internet was barely operational by today’s standards. Work was completed with pen and paper or at home on massive desktop computers, so having a computer and printer on campus at my disposal, in an office of my very own, was a game changer.
That computer:
An early Apple computer, complete with a floppy drive.
Last weekend, tragedy struck when I saw that computer displayed in the Peabody Museum.
It’s the first time something I once used is now behind glass in a museum.
I’m not happy about this at all.
