I was born in Brooklyn, NY on 18 April 1933, just 20 minutes after my twin brother, Larry. According to my mother, this event took place at exactly 6 a.m., as the church bells were ringing. Well, my family moved to a small community in Queens in 1941, and then to Floral Park, on Long Island, in 1943.
If you want to do so, you can see a cute picture of Larry and me at the age of 2. (I'm the one on the left.)
Now here we are 55 years later. Can you guess which one is me? 1990
Now here we are celebrating 130 years on 18 April 1998, on a birthday hike in the Shawangunk Mountains of New York (near the Catskills). 1998
I attended Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, then won a scholarship at Teacher's College of St. John's University, which was then located in Brooklyn; I received my B.A. in French Education there in 1955. After a wonderful year in Valence (a small city on the Rhône River in France, about 100 km south of Lyon), I was drafted in the army (my serial number began with US, which stands for Unwilling Soldier). Basic training and secretarial school in El Paso, then 16 months in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on the Neckar near Stuttgart. I was discharged after serving 1 year, 9 months and 20 days.
My life began again in 1958, when I began the first of 8 years as director of Holiday Farm, a camp for boys from the New York City area run by the Humes Foundation (now defunct), and graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley. I received my M.A. in French in 1961 and my Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures in 1965 from theUniversity of California at Berkeley. In the French Department, I made friends with a young woman and fellow T.A. who, unbeknownst to both of us, was to become my bride and joy, Anne Wildman. I also met Paul Barrette, my future collaborator for my textbooks there.
I was in Paris in 1963-1964, researching my Ph.D. topic and beginning writing what was to become a 500-page dissertaion on Jean-Jacques Le Franc de Pompignan (1709-1784), who has remained an important focus of my research. In 1964 I was appointed assistant professor of French at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, and in 1968 became an associate professor. Meanwhile, Anne and I were married in 1965, just a week before my Ph.D. was officially awarded. Not too many people know that a major street in Paris, and a metro station, celebrate our anniversary, le 4 septembre. You can look it up!
In 1970 we moved to Newark, Delaware, as I was appointed professor of French at the University of Delaware, where I have remained. A high point in our life occurred in 1972, when our lovely daughter Jeanne Rebecca was born. Jeannie had a good education at the Newark Center for Creative Learning, Wilmington Friends School, and Haverford College, from which she graduated in 1994 with a major in Music Technology. She also took extra courses in her field at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado and at New York University.
In the unlikely event anyone who has read this far wants to follow some aspects of my career, he or she can take a look at a version of my curriculum vitae, which is more or less up to date.
