The main thing about childhood was to get out of it."
Wolfe attended public school until the seventh grade when he entered Saint Christopher's (Presbyterian) School, where he achieved academic honors, coedited the campus newspaper, and chaired the student council. In 1947 he entered Washington and Lee University where he divided his extracurricular time between pitching for the baseball team and writing for the school newspaper. An English major, he graduated cum laude in 1951. That same year after a brief, unsuccessful attempt to become a professional baseball player, Wolfe enrolled at Yale University, where he earned a doctorate in American studies in 1957.
Upon leaving Yale in 1956 Wolfe was offered a college teaching position that he declined because he was tired of academic life and longed instead to become a writer. After a two-month, soul-searching stint as a bohemian/furniture mover, he began his newspaper career as a reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Union. Wolfe had written inquiry letters to 120 newspapers, but his only positive response came from the Union, which hired him at fifty-five dollars per week.
After three years at the Union, in 1959 Wolfe headed to the Washington Post, where he reported local and foreign events and wrote humor articles.
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