Random Thoughts: My days as a "Vinny" boy.

Coincidence or Pattern?

When I was a teenager I lived in an orphanage called St. Vincent's Home for Boys. The kids there were sometimes referred to as "Vinny" boys. "Vinny" was how those of us who lived there referred to St. Vincent's. I went in there during or close to the start of my junior year in high school. I attended Midwood High School. Both places were located in Brooklyn, New York. I was in St. Vincent's until I graduated high school, afterwards, I left to attend Manhattan College in the Riverdale section of Bronx, New York.

There I met a guy named Michael Thorogood. He was a bit older than me and about to graduate high school. I didn't know him very well and I met him only once but he was one of the more well known boys there because most of the boys and staff there talked about him a lot. He did very well in school and he was very athletic. St. Vincent's held him up as one of their model citizens. The population of the home was predominantly black or African American and Hispanic which was another reason why he stood out. There weren't many white kids at St. Vincent's. There weren't may Asians either I was one of four Chinese kids in the whole place at the time.

Anyway, Mike was smart enough to be accepted by the Air Force Academy. One thing I had heard about Mike was that he had a very volatile personality. He angered very easily and was prone to fighting. There were some people who found him a bit obnoxious. Later on I heard he was kicked out of the Air Force Academy and I suspect his personality had something to do with it. He ended up going to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to major in chemical engineering. That's the last I heard of him.

Father Harris, the priest who was director of St Vincent's and the staff were all very proud of him until the he left the Air Force Academy or so I heard. After that he was an embarrassment but I suspect he was forgiven. Since then no one ever mentioned him again, at least not to me.

I went to Manhattan College to study chemical engineering. Also when in college I was a member of Air Force ROTC(Reserve Officer Training Corp.) I joined with the hope of getting an AFROTC scholarship and perhaps get pilot or navigator training but they said I didn't qualify because I had bad eyesight. They tried to talk me into becoming a missile launcher instead but I wasn't interested so I dropped out of AFROTC.

After graduation I only worked as an engineer for about two years. I ended up in computer programming by accident and I enjoyed it so much that I never went back to engineering. Years later I attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute to learn the Java programming language and the UNIX operating system which are two areas in the computer field.

He was involved in the Air Force and i was involved with the Air Force. He went to Worcester Polytechnic Institue or WPI and I went to WPI. He studied chemical engineering and I studied chemical engineering. Most interesting of all we both started out at St. Vincent's.

I wonder if it's a coincidence or is it a pattern?