To My Future Wife

Dear future wife of Abe J. Riesman '08,

There’s an old family legend that my grandfather boxed with JFK back in 1937, and that Grandpa completely kicked his ass. Technical Knock-Out in the first round. Ivy League playboy millionaire teeth scattered over the ring, Kennedy babbling out “I-ah, er-ah...” in a half-conscious state.

I have no idea whether or not the story is true, but it’s a delight to be able to jog along JFK Street and think to myself, “Pssh. This guy might have a damn street named after him, but I used to get birthday presents from a dude who totally annihilated him in a bout of fisticuffs.”

This apocryphal story took place during my grandfather’s sophomore year at Harvard. His name was Robert A. Riesman Sr., and he graduated from Harvard College in the Class of 1940.

Then he donated a bunch of money to Harvard Hillel and got the building named after his father.

Oh, and he was one of ten members of my family who went here.

So, let’s see—last name on a building, alumni relatives in the double-digits...I’m not sure if anyone but me uses this term, but I think I qualify as a “hyper-legacy.”

Why, pray tell, am I revealing these embarrassing facts? It’s not to impress you—indeed, I’m assuming you’re a modern, enlightened woman, and thus despise anything that stinks of nouveau-riche American aristocracy. Even if it’s Jewish nouveau-riche American aristocracy.

Hell, I despise it, too! I’m completely opposed to the concept of weighting college admissions in favor of legacy kids. Indeed, I used to be so opposed to the very concept of collegiate legacy, that I refused to apply to this very school. “I’ll never know if I got in on my own virtues!” I’d exclaim. “And no one’s going to respect me if they find out that my name’s on a damn building!”

But I was wrong. As long as I don’t sound like a dumb bunny in my tutorials, and as long as I don’t engage in any terribly conspicuous consumption, I am able to remain relatively anonymous, status-wise. Indeed, there’s far more disdain on this campus for Final Club members and coke-dealing socialites (populations which, I suppose, probably have a good deal of overlap with the legacy sector, but I digress) than for people like me.

So if not to defend myself or impress you, why do I write to you? I suppose it’s because being a legacy here has taught me an important lesson, and it’s one that I’d like all Harvardians to heart. Especially you, for reasons that will become obvious.

Here’s the lesson: Harvard is so much more amazing when you imagine that you’re Luke Skywalker or Michael Corleone. It’s easy for me to do, because my relatives are always telling me how important it is that I keep the family’s Harvard tradition alive, but everyone can do it.

That tradition has had its ups and its downs, but it’s always been fascinating. My great-grandfather, S. Robert Stone, was in the Class of 1920, making him one of the first Jews to come here after they lifted the “Jewish quotas,” and one of the last to come here before President Lowell started using other techniques to crack down on our cheating kind. My great uncle Dick once told me about how he was in Expos with Henry A. Kissinger ’50. “He was a real first-class jerk; thought he knew everything,” says stoic old Uncle Dick. My paternal grandfather helped lead a petition in 1938 to get Harvard to take on a German-Jewish university student and university professor after Kristallnacht, and was told by the President that Harvard “didn’t do things like that.”

My aunt was a photographer at The Crimson—she once took a picture of the president of the Harvard Republican Club unwittingly sitting in front of a painting of Chairman Mao, and she was nearly booted from the paper. My father didn’t much like this place-—his only untainted memory of Harvard was scoring tickets to Game Six of the 1975 World Series. My mom was in the first class of women to be admitted to the yard, a liberated lady in the era after The Pill and before AIDS.

And perhaps most importantly for you, my bride-to-be; it was thirty-odd years ago that my parents first laid eyes on each other somewhere on these cobblestone streets, and began a complex and destructive relationship that created me.

Thus, it’s a simple hop, skip, and jump for me to conceive of myself as the last of the Jedi, brought here by destiny to redeem my father, who so loathed this place. Or perhaps the heir to the Corleone empire, finally accepting my birthright in a small piece of land that my ancestors conquered in the face of ethnic hatred.

But anyone can, and indeed should, adopt a similar mindset. Here we are, at the most self-important of all learning institutions. Why not have a self-important inner monologue about one’s familial destiny?

Perhaps you’re the first of your clan to matriculate here. Great! So, you can think of your great-great grandfather, back in the old country—be it Ireland, Romania, Pakistan, or Polynesia. Would he have ever guessed that his progeny would one day grace the Yard? Did he even know what the Yard was? Think of your grandmother—have you brought her unique mannerisms and quirks to Harvard? Think of your uncle—will he one day be able to say that his niece was in junior tutorial with a future UN Secretary-General? You have taken the family in a startling and significant direction. While you take your exams, think of yourself as the newest chapter in a millennia-long odyssey of singularly interesting family history. Think of each paper as a small lightsaber battle in “Star Wars.” I know I do.

And when we romance each other, at some point down the line, you have to understand why I’m particularly lost in your eyes, or particularly worried about our mutually destructive qualities. It’s because I know what happened to the last generation here. I walk the streets and see the ghosts of their passions and failures, and know that I must redeem this land and be redeemed by it. You and I are bound up in an irrational history that neither of us can understand, and I want you to know how I think about my legacy.

So, the next time you see the words “Riesman Center” written on the Hillel façade, don’t let anyone tell you that it’s named after noted sociologist David Riesman. It has everything to do with your blushing future hubby.

Sincerely,

Your Blushing Future Hubby

—Abe J. Riesman ’08 is a Social Studies concentrator in Quincy House.