My grandmother, Desolina, left school after third grade to work on the family farm. When I explained to her I was going to graduate school, she gave me a puzzled look and asked, “You mean you went to college for four years and now you can go higher?”
“That’s right.”
She didn’t believe me.
“Desolina, what’s the matter with you?!” my grandfather shouted. “Extra college! Capito? He’s going to extra college!”
“Oh…” she said, still skeptical.
“God bless America!” Tony added.
And so for the next year, my study at Columbia University was referred to as “extra college.”
After I graduated, she asked, “What are you going to do now, Mr. Extra College?”
I’d gotten a job on a real estate magazine. So I replied, “journalista.” Close enough, I thought.
Desolina looked at me with disbelief and said, “You think this is big thing?” She grunted, “Extra college and now you are going to be a journalista?”
It took me five minutes to realize that she thought I was going to be a guy at a Manhattan newsstand that peddles newspapers, magazines, candy, and Chicklets. When I finally made her understand, she seemed satisfied, but not entirely.
