Northfield / Mount Hermon Memories:
I look back on my years at Northfield as among the happiest of a mostly happy life. I was a year younger than most of my classmates, so adjusting to being away from home was difficult that first year at Hillside. With the support and guidance of the faculty and staff, the friendship of my mates, the enriched academic and social life of the school, I grew to be more self-reliant and self-confident than is my nature. Polishing piles of silver with Mrs. Playful on Saturday mornings, watching Mrs. Dorchester valiantly attack an invading bat with a hatchet, burning my hands on the fire rope, falling exhausted into bed after Mountain Day, receiving inspiration from William Sloane Coffin, having dinner at Hillside with Ferrante and Teicher, admiring Diane Zaremba's hand-knit sweaters, wishing I had Linda Olson's thick, dark hair and Karen Eldred's exquisite voice, wondering with Lucy Brown if the world was coming to an end during the Cuban Missile Crisis, seeing pictures of the Holocaust for the first time, hearing the clap of thunder at Christmas Vespers, taking in Miss Palmer's cautionary advice that being wrong occasionally was far better than vegetating like a carrot - these and so many more happenings, big and small, are woven into my fabric. Everything I learned about my adult self began at Northfield, and I am so grateful for those years. Sometimes when I am up that way, I drive around the campus to re-live my memories and climb up to Round Top to re-capture the power of the beauty of the place. I recall having tea with Miss Betsey Moody - I still have the small Gospel of John she gave each of us - and feeling I had stepped back in time into a world where hard work and trying to do the right thing mattered. This is the light I took with me from Northfield, one I've tried to shine on my children, my friends, and my students.