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As I think about MI, three themes quickly emerge: French, basketball, and friendships.
Madame Mullins labored with me. In 1956 I could not remember the sequence of tenses, that, for example, si and the imperfect must be followed by the conditional. I guess I really did not care at the time. Gay and I had other verbs on our minds.
By 1962 France had come to dominate my interests. At the University of Strasbourg I morphed into a francophone and a francophile. So much so that by 1988 everyone of my presidential speeches at Barat College included loving references to France, its language and literature. And today the cycle is complete as I teach undergraduates the sequence of tenses.
Like Madame Mullins, Miss Bemis labored with me. To beat Villa in basketball, we all had to stick to zone defense; team work would always trump individual efforts. We did indeed beat Villa, and I have always used Miss Bemis' strategy: protect the zone and build success.
I have such vivid memories of my friends. Gay offered me pepper gum on the MI bus and then proceeded to tell my father that I was a D student. Sandie showed me how to organize everything, especially jewelry. Liz taught me that there is life outside of Ladue and Clayton. Charlotte, coming from Villa, used both coordinated and subordinated sentence structures. Patsy was always so generous. Suzanne has a funny story for every topic. Leanne was so small that she could fit in the back seat of Sandie's Renault. Cookie gave the best sleepovers but never knew it because she was always asleep. Jane was so rich that her chauffeur drove us around. Jill was so rich that you could wipe your lipstick off on her towels and never get in trouble. Jan told wonderful stories, but I never heard one conclusion of any of them. Susan used mercuric chloride to clean her jewelry. Don't ask.
I am so looking forward to our wonderful 1960 class reunion.
