Another candle on the cake
SUNDAY, my birthday, was atop the Freedom Tower’s One World Observatory. It was born seven years ago. I’m older.
Floor 102 was Mindy Levine and her Yankees president husband Randy Levine’s special dinner for me. Mindy Levine was remembering how it started for me.
I was set for college at 15. But Andrew Jackson High required females to make their own white lawn graduation dress in home ec. I can’t sew. After my mother paid a pro to finish it for me, the principal said: “She didn’t make her own dress, she can’t graduate.” So: No diploma, college, graduating high school. I’m living proof that you can’t get anywhere without a college education.
Years later, interviewing Prime Minister Nehru in New Delhi, an accompanying Library of Congress official inquired about my university. I said, “I never graduated high school.” Forget his reply. But I remember — and have since reported — Nehru pinched my behind walking in back of me.
Years later, outside Vientiane, I’m teaching English along the Mekong Delta. Parsing “exactly on time,” I had one student employ that precise phrase. She said, “I want a dress exactly on time” as yours. My teaching career ended.