by Julian Schultz
julian@oxfordwineroom.com
(Lest you think I may have forgotten this is a wine column: The wines were from Burgundy, Bordeaux, California and Germany. More on these later.)
A few days ago, on August 4, 2004, my 89th birthday, I received a birthday card from Shaun Hennessey, Clark University fundraiser.
I am a Clark graduate, class of 1939, a Clark Fellow, a member of the Clark legacy society. My late and beloved wife Lillian earned her Master's degree at Clark in '41; my son Gordon, his Bachelor's in '66.
Shaun's card and this being the month of August when I pay my annual $2000 Fellows dues recalled an early Fellows dinner. The nostalgia of Clark never leaves. The remembrance of this particular Fellows dinner has never dimmed.
So why was this Fellows dinner with gourmet prepared food and pedigree fine wines different from all other dinners?
The western twang and the lilting musical voice behind me were unmistakable. Could his be...43 years later? I turned. Her eyes rounded to brown-eyed Susans; a sucking sound of inhalation, an undecided awkward smile of recognition. I felt a rush of exhilaration, a violent thumping in my chest. Facing me was the love of my college years. Surely, she and her escort (her husband, a Clark Ph.D.) were first time attendees.
She introduced me: "We...aah...were...aah...friends here." She brushed against me as she moved through the door into the Higgins Center; a jolt of electricity stifled my breath. Without turning, she waved slightly and was lost in the crowd. I tried later to find her but I was imprisoned by conversations with Lillian, old classmates and friends. Had she, however, avoided me? Had time erased her emotions of us? The memories of what we had been to each other?
I asked Lillian to go on ahead to join some friends. I stepped outside into the dusk, found a secluded campus spot and looked up at the third floor to the right of the clock on the Jonas G. Clark
building. I called back yesterday and bid time return for a quiet moment of reverie:
She was studying for her Master's degree, had an I.Q. of 160, had graduated college at 17, played the flute and bass viol with virtuoso artistry, quoted Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets From The Portuguese" and wrote soulful poetry. She was Margaret Elaine, and she was my love.
Soon we were walking across campus to the library, arm in arm, crunching crisp red, gold and brown autumn leaves underneath. We began dating seriously and studying together, she graduate psychology courses, I undergraduate and some graduate psychology subjects.
Each day we were falling more in love. Although we spoke of marriage, our religious differences gave us pause; we tried to block them from our minds.
She would tease me about my "minor key personality - like Chopin's Prelude #4 in E minor" when we stood together arms around each other and looked up at the night sky through the third floor window and I would quote my favorite Omar Khayyam quatrain:
"Ah, moon of my delight who know'st no wane, the moon of heav'n is rising once again. How oft hereafter rising shall she look through this same (window) after us...but in vain?" She would say the eventuality made her sad.
Margaret Elaine graduated in 1938 and accepted a position as a clinical psychologist at the Women's Reformatory in Framingham. I visited her almost every Sunday during my senior year, traveling by bus; some days I hitchhiked.
We continued to speak of marriage, wishing, but feeling the hopelessness of it. My father finally prevailed upon me to end it, reminded me that I had no money, that I might need to fight a war, that my mother would be devastated by my untraditional marriage. He pleaded with me, said that he had never asked anything of me he knew I wouldn't want to do: "But, Jule, only this once."
"Yes, Pa." He buried his head on my shoulder; we both wept.
Margaret Elaine had returned home to South Dakota for her summer vacation. I wrote and told her not to return East on my account. I said I loved her; if she ever needed help, and I could provide it, she could count on me.
Her reply was wistful and sad; no reproach. She would remember me, she said...always, something about.... "until life's last light." Her letter has long since been lost, but not her poem that is indelibly etched in my mind:
"Since you left me I am
restless with longing.
When I waken the harsh caw of the crow shatters
the crystal calm of the morning.
A thousand discordant emotions come with the dawn.
My soul seeks peace, as a leaf down drifting
seeks a still forest pool.
But only your hands are peace bringing.
Only your presence can quiet my soul."
I happened to see her that winter at Clark when I was working on my Master's thesis; she was doing some research on criminality among women. I suggested that we might resume some sort of relationship. She touched my arm, smiled up at me and shook her head, no; then added: "There are two women in every man's life: the woman you loved and the woman you married...and thank God you did. And so it will be for you, Julian."
Our goodbye kiss was brief and tender...no words. I know there was emotion
restrained that neither of us expressed. She squeezed my arm and walked away.
I caught up with Lillian at the staircase leading to Tilton Hall. I put my arm around her, drew her to me, kissed her hard and long with uninhibited ardor. "What is that for, dear?" she asked, laughing at my indiscreet public behavior. I squeezed her hand, put it to my lips, took her elbow and escorted her up the staircase.
And that is why this Fellows dinner was different from others.
So who was Lillian, the woman I married...and thank God I did? This is an excerpt from my eulogy at her funeral:
"What began as a simple summer romance was a head and shoulders picture of a beautifully young woman in cap and gown that appeared in Worcester's daily newspaper.
"She had been awarded the Ella Whitney Prize for highest academic achievement and outstanding student in the senior class at Worcester State College and a full-tuition scholarship for graduate study in history and international relations at Clark University, where she earned a Master's degree.
"She was also president of Kappa Delta Pi, national academic honor society in education and editor of the prestigious Quarterly Review. I learned later that she had been valedictorian of her graduating class at Classical High School in Worcester.
"She was academically versatile to teach college preparation high school English and mathematics although her graduate degree was in history. Had I not come into her life, she would have pursued a Ph.D. and achieved prominence in her field.
"When high school and college classmates who knew her would ask me, 'How can you love with such a brainy person?'
"I would answer: 'Simple. She comes down to my level.' And so it was for 59 years of love between us...and so she is in my thoughts until I join her...join her in the tongue-less silence of the dreamless dust.
"Dating her took no little persuasion. She agreed somewhat reluctantly: I could visit, but we wouldn't leave the house. Three evenings we sat in the living room and talked - about literature, music, art, poetry, history, current events, etc.
"Initially the course of true love did not run smoothly: My swaggering egocentric personality and her proper, principled, intellectual deportment seemed irreconcilable. I stopped dating her, returned, departed again.
"Hiking home through the woodlands one hushed twilight, quoting poetry to myself, I became aware that my values had become warped. How could I have ignored character, intelligence and beauty? I returned once more and was not rejected, although rejection is what I deserved.
"She opened my mind to caring and selflessness, always putting my comfort and wishes ahead of hers. I learned that sharing and sacrificing were my obligations also.
"In many ways we are complete opposites: I, sentimental, emotional and romantic; she, practical, objective and realistic. But through the interchange of our personalities each complements and adds complexity to the other.
"She is Juliet to my Romeo, Desdemona to my Othello, Beatrice to my Benedick, Elizabeth to my Browning, Heloise to my Abelard.
"Though she lies there in that plain pine box in eternal sleep, I am still in love with this woman who is forever young in my mind and heart. That love will continue into eternity and beyond."
Both are gone now: Margaret Elaine died one month before and same year as Lillian.
Thank you for staying with me and sharing my precious remembrances.
Now to the Fellows dinner: We were faultfinders and nitpickers, reviewing the food and selecting the wines for the upcoming Fellows dinner. Anything receiving the imprimatur of this trial dinner committee had to be perfect.
Some 175 Fellows and guests in formal dress stepped into the newly carpeted old gym. Our hearts leaped up when we beheld the reception tables bountiful and dazzling with displays of colorful hors d'oeuvres. Eyes exploded with incredulity.
Besides the all-purpose Le Jardinet Blanc de Blanc white wine from the Loire, were 13 beckoning, seductive, mouth-watering hors d'oeuvres: chicken paté, duck paté, steak tartare, shrimps with dipping sauce, oysters Rockefeller, lox with cream cheese, Roquefort cheese turnover, spiced fruit and pastrami, asparagus pinwheel, blue cheese on apple, fruit kabob, seafood and spinach in puff pastry, and grilled lamb seasoned with rosemary.
The wines: Givry Blanc, Chablis Montmain, Buena Vista Chardonnay, Benziger Cabernet, Chateau Haut Bailly, Chateau Kirwan, Prum Riesling Spatlese.
The courses: salmon mousse; peppery hot soup of potatoes, leeks, celery and spinach; roast loin of veal stuffed with veal mousse; thick cut filet mignon with large mushroom cap and circled with wild rice in rolled grape leaves, baby carrot and kale with continental cucumber salad; artichoke hearts filled with creamed spinach surrounded with saffron rice and sauce of basil and whipped sour cream.
Dessert: fresh raspberries ringed with meringue, caressed by Grand Marnier liqueur sauce. Most of us over-surfeited from the food and wine cheered the refreshing light dessert.
Was the dinner perfection? I gave it higher grades than I earned as a student.
Flash! Dr. Bob Ouellette's 32nd annual Wine Workshop at Assumption College begins Tuesdays, 7:00 to 9:30 p.m., September 7, 14, 21, 28, October 5.
Dr. Bob, a retired physician, is acknowledged dean of wine educators and is renowned as a black belt caliber palateer.
Although I had been into wine since 1953 and Sweet Life Foods had also been wine distributors, I enrolled in Bob's course after I retired in 1983. I learned much that I didn't know and drank superb wines from his distinguished cellar, some that I had never tasted before.
Come in as a novice, you will leave as a connoisseur. Bring two wine glasses and sip, learn and enjoy!
Cost: $125; register by calling 508 767 7364, Assumption College Center for Continuing and Professional Education. Log onto www. assumption.edu/ce for detail.
Flash! Flash! Enjoy authentic American folk music, lyrics composed by and melodies sung by guitar virtuoso Stuart Ferguson.
I've been into music all my life, but was ignorant of folk music other than what I heard occasionally by Burl Ives. I was given a gift of Ferguson's disc, Shackles & Ties, 11 lyrical pieces, some poetic - Romance, A Particular Night, When People Pray.
Ferguson's folk music was a revelation. I was blown away, listening repeatedly to the soulful melodies and the stirring lyrics. What pleasure I had been missing!
Cost: $15, plus $2 shipping and handling.
Details: Do yourself a favor: Log onto www.stuartferguson.net
Wine pick: Tobin James Johannesburg Riesling RESERVE 2003, $ll.99. Aromas and flavors of honeysuckle with apricot, peach and citrus; off dry with well-balanced acidity leading into long silky finish and aftertaste. Imposing wine bargain priced.
Wine pick: Tobin James "Radiance" Chardonnay 2002, $14.99. Wonderfully interchangeable aromas of flavors of citrus and pear with hints of apple, pineapple and slight vanilla oak; barrel fermented and aged on lees for complexity. Super representation of this all-purpose wine.
Wine pick: Trinchero Family Selection Pinot Noir 2003, $9.99. Generous ripe black cherry and mocha aromas underlaid with cedar, spice and vanilla. Sleek and supple flavor with bing cherries, spice and hint of mint. You can't miss, your paying only $9.99.
Email Comments to Julian at:
julian@oxfordwineroom.com