Crossing Nassau Street

Thank you for your essay! It helps to explain why I always felt so welcome when I crossed Nassau Street. Members of Princeton's African American community treated me like a long-lost cousin.

For example, in 1962, I knew that I'd be spending the summer in Princeton, rather than riding a Greyhound bus home to New Mexico. That opened my schedule to "working [at] reunions." But my problem was that I am no athlete, and therefore the best reunion jobs were not available to me.

This was no problem for May Fish, the legendary Princeton caterer. She was feeding the Class of 1930, and when I approached her, she hired me on the spot. That "gig" gave me a lifetime of good memories and stories!