Carolyncholland's Weblog

July 22, 2010

I Wear My Cornell (University) Jacket Proudly

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

I WEAR MY CORNELL (UNIVERSITY) JACKET PROUDLY

     I wear my Cornell University jacket proudly, humbly.

     When I’m asked if I graduated from this prestigious university, I have an answer ready: No, not from the traditional University. I graduated from the Cornell University of hard knocks.

     You see, my maiden name is Cornell. I am the daughter of the late Robert William and Nancy Briskay Cornell.

     And like Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, my father and I are descendants of the original Cornell settlers, Thomas and Rebecca Briggs Cornell. I carried the surname that came through the years from 1600, through the generations, until I married.  

     Mine was the typical dysfunctional family. Because my parents divorced when I was four, I didn’t re-meet my father until I was thirty-two. At the same time, I met four of his five children by his second marriage—three boys and a girl.  His fifth child, a son, from that same marriage, has no interest in meeting his father’s child from a previous marriage.

     The first thing Kitty said to me when we first spoke on the telephone was that she always (more…)

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