The
mid-nineteen fifties
were the best of times and the worst of times for me.
My French Language
Professor, Dr. X’s voice was as gruff as his appearance. He looked beyond
retirement age. Maybe the university couldn’t find anyone both qualified and
pompous enough to replace him.
There was nothing casual
about him. He always wore his long black professor’s robe, giving the
impression that he was going to bless us or more likely curse us. He was just a
language prof, for heaven’s sake, not a Catholic Theology professor.
His mortarboard hat,
firmly clamped onto his grey, wire-haired-terrier protruding hair, was pushed
down hard enough to defy Stalin’s army to dislodge it. Its tassel dangled like
a limp donkey’s tail. The point of the cap pressed down into his forehead making
him resemble an ape, or at the very least, the comedian, Jerry Lewis.
Weren’t you supposed to
give those hats back right after graduation, or pay a penalty?
His shaggy, grey eyebrows
sprang out and overhung his eyes, like frost-bitten ivy, drooping down from the
top of a craggy wall.
His mustache, like a small
grey, prickly porcupine clinging to his upper lip, was stained orangey-brown on
one side, just above where his pipe was usually attached.
Professor Dr. X. had
reluctantly allowed me into his second year Honours French class, but really
didn’t want me there. I had transferred over from an obviously plebeian,
Executive Secretarial Science major. To him I was like a hobo crashing an elite
wedding banquet at the nearby, exclusive, private, London Hunt Club.
I had not had the pleasure
of “enjoying” Year One of his Honours class, so I was an interloper.
The other class members,
three women, two men and a nun, had been with him the year before, were at
least a year ahead of me in knowledge, and were serious Honours Students. And
they were all a year or two older than I, not counting the nun who was of indeterminate
age. The sister wore the whole nun regalia for that time: sensible black oxford
shoes, opaque black stockings, the long black habit with the white wimple and
the de rigueur rosary and cross.
Prof Dr. X took every
chance to belittle me and nit-pick my mistakes, which were admittedly
extensive.
My worst sin was not
signing up for his Summer Language course which was complete immersion into the
language and culture of another province, Quebec, which was over 800 miles
(@1200 kilometres) away. Apparently, everyone who was serious about that second
language (and also wanted to please him), attended. The nun? Who knows?
I didn’t have the money,
and I had to work in the summer tobacco harvest to help finance my next year of
university.
One particular day the
prof came sweeping into the classroom, wearing his usual, professorial black
robe, the tail of which, like a train caboose, almost derailed itself, trying
to evade the slamming door.
Then, I noticed something.
A bit of his robe’s hem had detached from the main body of the fabric, and had
created a hole.
If it were my robe, and I could
afford to buy my own stapler, I could’ve temporarily repaired it with a few
staples. But I said nothing.
When he lifted his chair to position it at his
desk, he unknowingly shoved one leg of the chair through the hole in his hem.
As he turned to write something on the blackboard, the entrapped chair jerked
and clattered along behind him, like tin cans tied to newly-weds’ honeymoon
car. In owl-like manner, he swivelled his head to see who was causing that
racket, suspecting you-know-who.
Trying so hard not to
burst out laughing, I almost ruptured my own appendix.
Once, when I had a paper
to hand in, on approaching him, he thrust his left hand out to me. Thinking
that it must be some kind of strange, French handshake, or perhaps a gesture
that he wanted to act more kindly toward me, I put out my left hand and shook
his left one too.
Prof Dr. X. jerked his
hand away from me in disgust and snarled, “Miss D., I merely wanted that paper
you’re holding.”
Later, to get in my own
digs at him, whenever he assigned us an unscheduled, Saturday morning class, I
would come to class with my hair in rollers and pin curls, partially covered by
a kerchief, my fuzzy slippers overlapping my clumpy galoshes, and with my
bright green pajama cuffs rolled up, but clearly visible.
What was his motive for
assigning those Saturday morning classes? Was it to deny us out-of-towners the
chance to go home for the weekend; or make us miss some fun campus activity; or
to make sure we stayed sober the night before?
That Christmas and New
Year’s break, he announced that he would hold the first class of the New Year
on a Friday, not delaying it till Monday. No one else was having classes that
day. But I didn’t dare miss it or he’d be riding me even harder for the rest of
the year. So, I cut short my family holiday time, and showed up in class in my
highly visible, brand new, bright neon pink pajamas. The only other attendee
was the nun, who lived nearby, and apparently, had nothing better to do.
In the end, he gave me a
decent mark, probably hoping to get rid of me, but I came back the next year to
have another go at him.
Also, I do believe that I
have the dubious distinction of having personally, started that slovenly trend
of wearing pajama bottoms, instead of pants in public, which has finally become
fashionable decades after that 1955-56 academic year.
Would I have been on TikTok
if it had existed back then?
If so, I would’ve owed my
fame to Professor Dr. X and his holey robe.
***
Rochelle
Doan Craig is an unrecognized (and
rightly so) artist, failed writer with a garage full of her own books, much
maligned, burned-out teacher, wife, travel-wisher, pet-liker and
tough love (before the term was invented) mother of six (three of each kind), grandmother
of sixteen, and great-grandmother of two, with four more due in weeks.
Rochelle is also the
author of The Twelve Years of Christmas, a memoir available from Amazon here.
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