Posts Tagged ‘ Woodstock School ’

I was saddened to hear this week of the death of my friend and tenth-grade English teacher, Jim Swain. Jim’s roots were in Connecticut, but he was a world citizen; his work as a Methodist minister and literature teacher took him across the globe. When I was at Woodstock School, in northern India, Jim and his wife, Doris (his high school sweetheart), were the dorm supervisors for the high school boys. They were still in their twenties. Woodstock boys were famous for high jinks (according …Read More

We spent a lot of time on our attire at Woodstock School. Here are the tenth grade girls dressed for a Sunday morning church service, 1961. My friend Sara is very elegant in a graceful dress and pearls. Long before “Dress for Success,” Carol and Sally Beth look as if they could be running a major business. Some people owned more clothes than others, of course, but we all had a huge wardrobe to choose from–because we borrowed …Read More

“What a curious human quirk,” say gemologists Fred and Charlotte Ward, “to credit tiny jewels born deep in the earth with supernatural powers.” Especially when it comes to emeralds. Perhaps, say the Wards, we are bewitched by emeralds because green is the “most restful color on the visual spectrum, the hue most available to the human eye.” In theaters and tv and radio studios, there’s often a “green room” where performers calm their nerves before making an appearance. …Read More

Next week is a big week for me. On Tuesday, July 8, the third Jana Bibi book, Emeralds Included, comes out. Then, over the weekend, I go to the Friends of Woodstock School reunion, this year in Baltimore. I’m looking forward to participating in a panel discussion about literature. Moderator and fellow alum Jessie Lacy has asked three of us to comment on how the Woodstock experience influenced or informed our writing. Piece of cake. Have you got …Read More

I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! They’d banish us– you know! How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell one’s name the livelong day To an admiring bog! Emily Dickinson Well, Emily wasn’t an athlete, but if she had been one, she certainly wouldn’t have gone into triumphant leaps and high fives after winning an event. In contrast to Emily’s attitude, here’s …Read More

Here is my eleventh-grade roommate, Barbara, “signing out” of the girls’ dorm at Woodstock School, sometime in the early 1960s. We weren’t allowed to wear jeans to class, so this picture must have been taken on a weekend—probably on a Sunday afternoon, when we could go for two-hour walks on our Himalayan hillside. With boys, no less. (Those walks were a significant loophole to our supervised existence.) However, woe betide the girl who arrived back a minute late—she’d …Read More

Lee and I aren’t twins, but my mom often dressed us in matching outfits, sometimes even cut from the same cloth as her own dress. Left to right: Ruth, Betsy with dog, Everett, Jane, Lee. Chennai, 1953. Here, still in Chennai, we’re flanking Jane, who has graduated from rompers to a pinafore. “How’d I get here?” she seems to be saying, “between these two bodyguards?” At this point in our lives, our mother chose our clothes, but Lee …Read More

Woodstock School has a pull on its alumni that goes beyond the usual old school tie. Much of this has to do with the physical setting in the first range of the Himalayas, but there’s more to it than spectacular views. There’s the way the campus feels–you don’t just visit it, you practically wear it. You move through it–and I mean move. To get from the dormitories to the classrooms–from the auditorium to the lunch room–from the library …Read More

I’m just back from New York City, where I had a great visit with my childhood friend, Deborah Keehn. Debby and I were friends in Delhi, where we took Bharatanatyam dance lessons together. Later, we were Woodstock School roommates. Here we are on a typical Saturday morning, busily cleaning our dorm room. We had to pass room inspection before we could go to “the buzz,” as we called the bazaar in Mussoorie. See? All cleaned up! I had …Read More