Pete Hamill’s Circuitous Route to a High School Diploma
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: June 24, 2010
Having published 10 novels, finished an 11th, written a memoir and four other works of nonfiction, polished off countless columns and magazine articles, covered a few wars, briefly run the newsrooms of two newspapers and landed on a list of 400 New Yorkers described as helping to define the city over the past four centuries, Pete Hamill figured it was time to graduate from high school.
Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times
Pete Hamill, journalist, columnist, novelist and more, was on a list of 400 New Yorkers described as helping to define the city over the past 400 years.
Pete Hamill, journalist, columnist, novelist and more, was on a list of 400 New Yorkers described as helping to define the city over the past 400 years.
On Saturday, he will.
Two days after his 75th birthday, 59 years after dropping out of Regis High School as a thoroughly sophomoric sophomore, Mr. Hamill will receive an honorary diploma from the Jesuit-run school, on East 84th Street.
“The Jesuits,” he said, “believe in taking their time on the big decisions.”
Regis is an academically rigorous incubator for roughly 500 Roman Catholic boys, who pay no tuition. In Mr. Hamill’s day, “it was very much sink or swim,” said James E. Buggy, the school’s vice president for development. William Peter Hamill of Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a member of the class of ’53, chose to sink.
“It was one of those dumb things you do,” he said the other day. “I had convinced myself, full of 16-year-old melancholy, that it was the only thing I could do. And it was dumb. But it forced me to live the kind of life I lived.”
You may take this story any way you want — as evidence that a formal education isn’t the be-all and end-all; as proof that you create your own breaks; maybe as a sign of how much the world has changed, because the prospects for 16-year-old dropouts today are grim indeed. Or all of the above. Or none.
In any event, Mr. Hamill bounced around after leaving Regis in 1951. “I was living like I was double-parked,” he said. He worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, joined the Navy, studied art in Mexico, took a few academic courses in New York, signed on with an advertising agency and then, 50 years ago this month, took his first step toward an honest-to-goodness career. He got a tryout as a reporter at The New York Post.
“It was the last period when you could do that and still have a life,” Mr. Hamill said about leaving school early. “Try getting a job on a newspaper now without the résumé.” Not a chance. He said he would “never encourage some kid to drop out and go work in a steel mill instead.” The kid would have a hard time these days finding a steel mill.
In 1960, Mr. Hamill wrote a letter to The Post’s editor, James A. Wechsler, who was intrigued and invited him to the newsroom, which was then on West Street and looked as if it had last been cleaned around the time that Alexander Hamilton founded the paper, in 1801. Mr. Wechsler asked the young man if he had ever thought about becoming a newspaperman.
Sure, Mr. Hamill said. Hey, he had seen “Roman Holiday,” in which Gregory Peck played a reporter. His reaction was, “Look at this: Here’s Gregory Peck riding around Rome with Eddie Albert, never does any work, and he’s getting paid!”
Mr. Hamill remembers the idea of a belated diploma as having begun with a Regis classmate, Thomas Hickey, a retired lawyer in Paramus, N.J. Mr. Hickey’s recollection is that list after the list of 400 celebrated New Yorkers was announced in September by the Museum of the City of New York, Mr. Hamill told him, “I’d much rather have a Regis diploma on my wall.” Arrangements were made. He will receive his certificate from the school’s president, the Rev. Philip G. Judge, S.J.
Mr. Hamill makes no pretense of being much of a Catholic. “Somebody once said there’s no ex-Catholic, there’s only retired Catholics,” he said. “Because of the music and the architecture and the structure of the Mass and all that, it stays with you. I’m a retired Catholic.”
The Jesuits stayed with him, as well. “They put doubt in you, intellectual doubt,” Mr. Hamill said. “Someone presents a thesis, you back up and say, ‘Is that really true? How do we know that’s true?’ ” The Jesuits, he said, also bequeathed “standards of excellence — you couldn’t just show up.”
“Even now, as old as I am, I have this secret Jesuit over my shoulder,” he said. “I think I’ve written a pretty good paragraph and he’s shaking his head: ‘C’mon, pal. Better try that again.’ This critical intelligence directed at yourself is very good. In that sense, those two years at Regis shaped a lot of what I did later, because I was never satisfied.”
Still, he said, “I did feel I was the best Pete Hamill that ever lived.”
E-mail: haberman@nytimes.com
A version of this article appeared in print on June 25, 2010, on page A25 of the New York edition.
Two days after his 75th birthday, 59 years after dropping out of Regis High School as a thoroughly sophomoric sophomore, Mr. Hamill will receive an honorary diploma from the Jesuit-run school, on East 84th Street.
“The Jesuits,” he said, “believe in taking their time on the big decisions.”
Regis is an academically rigorous incubator for roughly 500 Roman Catholic boys, who pay no tuition. In Mr. Hamill’s day, “it was very much sink or swim,” said James E. Buggy, the school’s vice president for development. William Peter Hamill of Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a member of the class of ’53, chose to sink.
“It was one of those dumb things you do,” he said the other day. “I had convinced myself, full of 16-year-old melancholy, that it was the only thing I could do. And it was dumb. But it forced me to live the kind of life I lived.”
You may take this story any way you want — as evidence that a formal education isn’t the be-all and end-all; as proof that you create your own breaks; maybe as a sign of how much the world has changed, because the prospects for 16-year-old dropouts today are grim indeed. Or all of the above. Or none.
In any event, Mr. Hamill bounced around after leaving Regis in 1951. “I was living like I was double-parked,” he said. He worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, joined the Navy, studied art in Mexico, took a few academic courses in New York, signed on with an advertising agency and then, 50 years ago this month, took his first step toward an honest-to-goodness career. He got a tryout as a reporter at The New York Post.
“It was the last period when you could do that and still have a life,” Mr. Hamill said about leaving school early. “Try getting a job on a newspaper now without the résumé.” Not a chance. He said he would “never encourage some kid to drop out and go work in a steel mill instead.” The kid would have a hard time these days finding a steel mill.
In 1960, Mr. Hamill wrote a letter to The Post’s editor, James A. Wechsler, who was intrigued and invited him to the newsroom, which was then on West Street and looked as if it had last been cleaned around the time that Alexander Hamilton founded the paper, in 1801. Mr. Wechsler asked the young man if he had ever thought about becoming a newspaperman.
Sure, Mr. Hamill said. Hey, he had seen “Roman Holiday,” in which Gregory Peck played a reporter. His reaction was, “Look at this: Here’s Gregory Peck riding around Rome with Eddie Albert, never does any work, and he’s getting paid!”
Mr. Hamill remembers the idea of a belated diploma as having begun with a Regis classmate, Thomas Hickey, a retired lawyer in Paramus, N.J. Mr. Hickey’s recollection is that list after the list of 400 celebrated New Yorkers was announced in September by the Museum of the City of New York, Mr. Hamill told him, “I’d much rather have a Regis diploma on my wall.” Arrangements were made. He will receive his certificate from the school’s president, the Rev. Philip G. Judge, S.J.
Mr. Hamill makes no pretense of being much of a Catholic. “Somebody once said there’s no ex-Catholic, there’s only retired Catholics,” he said. “Because of the music and the architecture and the structure of the Mass and all that, it stays with you. I’m a retired Catholic.”
The Jesuits stayed with him, as well. “They put doubt in you, intellectual doubt,” Mr. Hamill said. “Someone presents a thesis, you back up and say, ‘Is that really true? How do we know that’s true?’ ” The Jesuits, he said, also bequeathed “standards of excellence — you couldn’t just show up.”
“Even now, as old as I am, I have this secret Jesuit over my shoulder,” he said. “I think I’ve written a pretty good paragraph and he’s shaking his head: ‘C’mon, pal. Better try that again.’ This critical intelligence directed at yourself is very good. In that sense, those two years at Regis shaped a lot of what I did later, because I was never satisfied.”
Still, he said, “I did feel I was the best Pete Hamill that ever lived.”
E-mail: haberman@nytimes.com
A version of this article appeared in print on June 25, 2010, on page A25 of the New York edition.
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