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Surviving the Winter
Craig Blackmon, Alum
Columbia College 1988
Teachers College 1992


Growing up in California, my father was a fresh air fanatic. He insisted that you should always sleep with a window slightly ajar for some fresh air. That worked fine in California, but it created some problems in NYC. As instructed by my (presumably) wise father, I cracked my window in my modest John Jay dorm room immediately upon moving in. In approximately mid-November, I developed a persistent, hacking cough. About a month later, one of my floor-mates, a native New Yorker, saw that my window was open and said, "What's your problem? Are you trying to kill yourself? It's FREEZING outside!" I put two and two together, closed the window, and went on to survive my first winter on the East Coast.

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