1981

1981

Dartmouth has always espoused roaming the girdled earth. We asked classmates about their undergrad overseas study abroad trips. Many wrote in with memories of exciting weekend and break travels to surrounding regions and countries. No one seems to recall much coursework. Kate Silberman Fischer says, “My favorite language study abroad [LSA] memory was driving from Siena to Sicily in October of 1978 with Elise Supovitz, Stephen Quatrano, Mark Gherardi, and my Italian host family sister, Laura Ducci, all of us squished in a Fiat 500 lent to us by Laura’s father, Antonio. I recently saw my Italian sister Laura in Rome and we stood staring at a Fiat 500 in wonder: Not only had we all fit in the car, with bags, we had a fabulous time.” She insists they spoke only Italian for the 10-day break, as theyhad promised professor David Sices.

During my LSA in Bourges, France, in between wide-ranging rail travel with classmates (Munich during Oktoberfest!), we read Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist play, La Cantatrice Chauve. Betweenits sur-reality and our poor comprehension, I have no idea what it was about.

While many, like Kate, formed strong bonds with their “families,” some of us had more mercenary hosts. Hugo Ribot’s family in Salamanca, Spain, provided him only water with meals, while their biological son was served Coca-Cola. So Hugo and Mike Leede hit the Costa Del Sol during spring break to enjoy red wine from botas, olives, jamon, and garlic mushroom tapas, excellent people watching in the plazas, and bar hopping. They also had “a blast on vintage pinball machines in each bar.” Hugo threw out a challenge, however, to Tom Taylor regarding a rumor of his and another classmate’s arrest for punching a Spanish plainclothes policeman. Tom?

Which leads us to the notorious gang in Blois, France—Lon Povich among them—who made French news. In a drole tone, the newspaper reported that American students’ trick (which it declined to reveal) to make the international phone in a particular cabine at the post office fail to register calls to the United States, racked up 20,000 French francs in unpaid charges. It was about $4,500 at the time, and the College hustled to make it right once discovered by the authorities. Fortunately, Lon had “an outstanding family” with whom he kept in touch and brought his own children to meet. Despite his brush with Gallic jurisprudence, he says he did learn “the world is a big place with many different cultures and points of view,” and we “should experience as many of them” as we can.

By the way, Jeff Kemp recently released Receive: The Way of Jesus for Men. He speaks to men’s groups of all kinds and you can find more at his website, JeffKempTeam.com.

—Ann Jacobus Kordahl, P.O. Box 470443, San Francisco, CA 94147; ann@annjacobus.com; Emil Miskovsky, P.O. Box 2162, North Conway, NH 03860; emilmiskovsky@gmail.com