Annette

When Michael finds something sooo… pleasing
Some delicacy more than appeasing
We expected….yea, knew
An outburst would ensue
A Catholic fit of guilt sneezing.

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Some of the best times we shared with Michael and Mary were accompanied by prolonged fits of sneezing. One night at a party at our place on Second Street, Bonnie Stalnaker said something so funny that it set off the first sneezing fit I witnessed. But the one I recall most vividly was at the American Bounty restaurant at Culinary Institute, when he had to leave the room and walk around the grounds until his sneezing subsided. Apparently desert was soooooo good that it evoked a Catholic guilt reaction.

Our time as students at RPI was very special. We were surrounded good and supportive people who wanted us to succeed. You and Mary Ellen and Doug Washburn and Vivian Leonard and and Bernice Cohen and Bob Krull and Bob Elmer. It as a rich and nurturing environment.

So much of that good environment was created by you and Mary Ellen. Like Jean Lutz, I remember sailing on Lake George. Truly the first time I had ever been in a sailboat and it scared me to death. Staying with your sons when you and Mary were out of town, Mary taught me to make sausage and peppers, a recipe we have made for 30 years and never fail to toast Mary Ellen. 

I remember that once when Jean had stayed the weekend with the boys, she had done her laundry at Maison Halloran—and dropped her undies through the crack between the washer and dryer. Michael brought them to her discretely in a paper bag the next day to class, and said, “Jean, I just want you to know it was a wonderful weekend, but you left these behind.” And handed them to her in class. It was a great moment. Jean turned more colors than a rainbow.

I also recall that Michael and Merrill traveled together to the CCCC meeting in San Francisco. Michael had been out late celebrating with a group of  rowdy rhetoricians the night before, and was the most painfully hung over person I had ever seen when he stumbled downstairs the next morning to fly back to New York with with Merrill Whitburn. Merrrill showed up a few minutes later, his usual ebullient and interactive self. I could almost feel Michael’s pain and figured he was in for the longest flight of his life.

We did a pretty good job of keeping up with Michael and Mary after graduation. We had dinners at our house in Ruby or at Culinary. We spent time together when the Hallorans visited in Vienna. But it was harder to keep up after we returned to the US in 1992 and moved to North Carolina. We still exchanged Christmas cards but we could not get together for dinner any more. We lost touch when the Hallorans moved off of Second Street  It was last year before we learned about the last few years.

But I cannot imagine how different my life would have been if Michael had not been part of it. Happy 80th birthday to my friend and mentor. I look forward to a chance to drink too much and talk over old times before much more time has passed, to laughing so hard that we all sneeze.