Margo Gray

The leaves just starting to change color.

it wasn't only the beauty of the campus that surprised him.

From the start, Richard says he felt like a stranger in a strange land.

For starters, Richard was confused why so many of his classmates somehow knew each other already.

He discovered that many of them, the preppies as he calls them, had come from the same small circle of elite prep schools.

And then there was the uniform.

Yale had instructed freshmen to wear a coat and tie to class, so Richard had dutifully purchased a whole new wardrobe.

But when he showed up, he learned there was an unspoken memo.

Everyone actually wore tweed jackets with elbow patches and a deliberately rumpled tie.

But one thing in particular felt completely outside his experience.

It began when he got instructions to report to Yale's main gymnasium, Payne Whitney.

Richard learned that he'd have to go through a whole series of tests, starting with a fitness assessment.

And he was nervous.

He wasn't exactly the athletic type.

This portion of the evaluation didn't surprise Richard.

He'd had his share of sit-up and pull-up tests in high school.

But the next part did.

They were going to evaluate his posture.

Yes, you heard that right.

Until the 1970s, nude swimming was standard for high school boys across much of the country.