Well Made and Enduring
Copyright© 2016 by PocketRocket
Prologue
I am often asked how we met. So, very quickly, here is the bare bones.
Dr. Gunter-Richards is famously well educated—PhD with honors from Yale, PhD with highest honors from Dartmouth. I also carry an Ivy League PhD, so many people assume we met at some sort of colloquium or conference. In fact, we met in a South Boston diner as undergrads. We had both seen a neighborhood theater rendition of Waiting for Godot.
After the show, a number of the theater patrons moved their discussions across the street to the closest coffee shop. We did not speak Instead, Dr. Richards talked to my date, though argued would be closer. David is a Harvard graduate and he never stood a chance. It’s worth mentioning that though we never spoke, Dr. Richards did give me one of her famous deconstructions. It was not a pleasant experience.
We would not meet again for over two years. During that time I graduated from Mount Holyoke and began graduate school at Dartmouth. Dr. Richards was on a faster track. She finished her baccalaureate degree in one additional semester, then her doctoral work in three more. To be clear, Doctor Richards earned a PhD, from Yale, in four years from secondary school. This was noticed in high places, such as Governor’s offices, which in turn gave Dr. Richards a leg up when she went into politics.
The occasion of our meeting was Sociology 521 - Cultural Sociology, which is the University’s way of describing a directed readings course. I was a student in the class and was feeling impatient because the instructor was a few minutes late. That quickly vanished when I saw the name she had written on the whiteboard. It would be two more weeks before we exchanged our first words, though I admit I spoke at length behind her back. Truth be known, Dr. Richards was an easy target, so I sniped.