I was 14 years old playing hooky from school with my brother and father. My brother was going up to Hanover, New Hampshire to see Dartmouth College and be interviewed for admission. I was the tag-along kid along for the ride. I love going places, meeting people, and watching the scenery rush by a moving vehicle.
The ride went quickly. My father had a little English Ford called a Cortina. It hummed just like a sewing machine. We drove over the Connecticut River into Hanover. It’s purely a college town, with one main street leading up to a large green and an old-fashioned New England campus with lots of maple trees.
My father was stopped at a light on Main Street when all of a sudden he said to me, “Hop out, find 36 Maple Street and knock on the door.” It wasn’t hard; I walked about a block and a half and went up and knocked on the door of a white raised ranch house. Pretty soon I saw a dark-haired lady in white tennis shorts come bustling down the stairs. She opened the door, looked at me and said in a deep German accent, “Don’t tell me who you are- I’m going to guess!”
To my surprise, she guessed correctly. Within 2 or 3 minutes she exclaimed, “You’re a perfect cross between Anne and Richard- come in and have some cake; it’s just cooled and ready to eat.”
With a rather dramatic flair, Fifi sliced into the cake, only to have the cake knife leap out of her hand and ricochet away. Fifi burst out laughing as she peered into the offending cake: she’d baked a utility rubber band right into the middle of a German chocolate cake. After she delicately removed the rubber band, she served me the most delicious piece of cake I’d ever had in my life.
And when I had had my last swallow, she said, “I am sure glad you came by just now; the faculty wives will be here in an hour. I’d have been the laughing stock of Hanover.”
So that was how I met Fifi.
The ride went quickly. My father had a little English Ford called a Cortina. It hummed just like a sewing machine. We drove over the Connecticut River into Hanover. It’s purely a college town, with one main street leading up to a large green and an old-fashioned New England campus with lots of maple trees.
My father was stopped at a light on Main Street when all of a sudden he said to me, “Hop out, find 36 Maple Street and knock on the door.” It wasn’t hard; I walked about a block and a half and went up and knocked on the door of a white raised ranch house. Pretty soon I saw a dark-haired lady in white tennis shorts come bustling down the stairs. She opened the door, looked at me and said in a deep German accent, “Don’t tell me who you are- I’m going to guess!”
To my surprise, she guessed correctly. Within 2 or 3 minutes she exclaimed, “You’re a perfect cross between Anne and Richard- come in and have some cake; it’s just cooled and ready to eat.”
With a rather dramatic flair, Fifi sliced into the cake, only to have the cake knife leap out of her hand and ricochet away. Fifi burst out laughing as she peered into the offending cake: she’d baked a utility rubber band right into the middle of a German chocolate cake. After she delicately removed the rubber band, she served me the most delicious piece of cake I’d ever had in my life.
And when I had had my last swallow, she said, “I am sure glad you came by just now; the faculty wives will be here in an hour. I’d have been the laughing stock of Hanover.”
So that was how I met Fifi.
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