Admission Statements,
LLC
Sample #4
The Waterford Stud: Personal Statement by Jared Hales
Dr. Bakker fits my stereotype of a retired professor: someone who's so smart I often can't tell what he's talking about. One day, over lunch, he told me The Great Gatsby was one of the greatest novels ever written. Fitzgerald wrote "just enough," he said. "He didn't try to take the story too far or tell the reader too much." I bought the book that afternoon and read it in a few days. I still don't know what he was talking about.
I am Dr. Bakker's insurance agent . . . at least that's how it started. But then one day he called me because his power had been turned off; he'd forgotten to pay the utility bill. "I was wondering if you could help me," he said. "In my condition, I can't write. I need someone to help me pay the bills." I told him I'd come over the next day. I found him on his back porch, reading The New Yorker and drinking a glass of wine. He seemed pleased to see me. "Jared, my boy, come have a seat. I was just talking to myself. Actually, I was having a conversation. Do you ride horses?"
I said I'd done a little riding on my uncle's farm in Idaho.
"Well, I can't anymore, but I used to do quite a little bit of riding when I was your age. I was just remembering when I was a graduate student and I drove a young lady out into the country to a stable. The stable-keep asked me if I wanted to ride their wildest horse, a quarter horse they called the Waterford Stud. Well, I wanted to impress this young lady, of course, so I climbed on. The horse started off at a nice, gentle trot, but then all of a sudden it took the bit in its teeth and-shoom!-lit out for home. I managed to stay on, but it shook me up I assure you. I was just telling myself that this dad-blamed sedan I have in the garage is like the Waterford Stud. Do you know what I mean? I'll have you drive it sometime; you'll see what I mean."
I think Dr. Bakker sees something of himself in me. He says he retired from teaching because he was no longer interested in all his students, only in the smart ones. I respect that-retiring, I mean. He tells me I should give up my plans for law school and go into teaching, that teaching is where I can really make a difference. I respect his opinion on that too, but I don't agree.
Once he took issue with me for leaving school to serve a two-year Mormon mission. He argued that it must have interrupted my schooling, that it must have been hard coming back to school, and I must have been "behind." It's true that I had those same concerns when I got back; I wondered if I'd lost some competitive edge in the interval. In fact, I found that I was a much better student because I'd learned to study, to discipline myself, and to apply myself whole-heartedly. I told him how much better I'd become at managing my time and relating to all types of people. I don't know if he was persuaded, but he listened to me carefully, leaning forward on the arms of his chair and looking at the floor.
He is Episcopalian, and on bad days he complains that he can't shoot himself because he's a Christian. I tell him not to even think about that because I would be the one who had to clean up the mess. He laughs and calls me a "disgusting wretch."
It is a little sad, but endearing, to watch such a phenomenal mind slipping away. One day he wanted to send me to the bank to deposit a check. He called the bank and asked for someone named Kathy. "Kathy," he said, "I'm going to send you my personal assistant, Jared Webber, down to…
"Jared Hales," I said, interrupting.
"Right, I'm going to send him down to you; he's got blonde hair and…what color are your eyes, Jared? Blue?"
I had to laugh. "Doctor Bakker," I said, "my hair is dark brown and my eyes are hazel."
He walks hunched over in hiking shorts, a field jacket, a pouch over his shoulder, and braces on his feet. In the evenings he has a drink on the back patio of the country club looking out over the golf course. He doesn't play golf. Once he asked if I wanted to drive him around the course on a golf cart. I was worried about the club rules. But he insisted, so I drove him around and we had a grand time racing around the bunkers and through the sprinklers while he whooped and yelled, "You're going to kill me! You're going to get my membership revoked!"
He doesn't intimidate me now, but he did at first. I'd heard about Dr. Bakker as a teacher before I ever met him as a man. I'd heard fellow students or other professors speak of him in reverent tones. I'd seen him once before, crossing campus with his cane. I could tell he walked in pain but I was impressed by the confident smile on his face. When I told him about law school, the first thing he mentioned was a lawyer friend of his who "exudes authority and wealth." I don't exude authority or wealth. I don't think I'd even use "exude" in a typical conversation.
One night after Dr. Bakker had treated me to dinner at the country club, he asked me again why I wanted to go to law school and not teach. I told him that I felt education and the law were two of the noblest professions; both fields affect people's lives in ways other professions do not. "The reason I chose law school," I said, "is that law gives me more options. If I teach and then decide later that I want to do something else, my opportunities are limited, but with a law degree, I might work for a private firm for a while, then move into teaching or the public sector. Law school gives me options."
Dr. Bakker hasn't bugged me about law school lately; he knows my mind is made up. I don't know how much of himself he really sees in me, but the odd thing is that I'm beginning to see myself in him. In him, I see qualities I want to develop in myself.
Going anywhere with Dr. Bakker, I'm reminded just how much a professional can be involved in people's lives. The first time we met to discuss his insurance policy, I walked with him down a narrow, one-way street to my car. It should have taken us one minute, even with his bad legs, except that nearly every person we saw said, "Jan! How are you?" Then Dr. Bakker would engage them in an intimate conversation. "Is your mother out of the hospital?" he would ask, or "Are you all moved into the new home?" We stopped to see a friend of his who owns an art gallery. It took us half an hour to reach the car.
But what impressed me most was the way he introduced me to every person in a way that made me feel like his equal. Of course I know how young and inexperienced I am next to him-even his old hunt-and-peck typewriter is older than I am-but he made me feel like I belonged with him. He is the antithesis of everything I find distasteful in the cold, impersonal, efficient "professional." His training and professionalism do not distance him from "common" folk; they are a resource and a boon to everyone around him.
He is not a stereotypical old man, stuck in the past and the four walls of his own life. Despite his hobble and his failing memory, he is alive and well in other people's lives and in his own intellectual life. He is what I would like to be. I wonder what he would do if I told him, "You would have made a good lawyer." He'd probably laugh and try to hit me with his cane.