Dear Readers,

Today is the 44th anniversary of my first trip on an airplane.  If you ask if my first flight was at the age of one, thank you, that is very flattering, but no.

I was twenty years old and I was wearing a blue and white mini-dress with white knee socks and white sandals and feeling cute. My hair was long and blonde, no silver strands among the gold. Our group of Rutgers Camden students was about to spend seven weeks in Europe, six weeks studying French in Lausanne, Switzerland and one week touring Paris.  The joy!

My Aunt Lucy and my mother had taken me shopping — thank you, Aunt Lucy and Mom, and so my suitcase was packed with pretty dresses as well as the heaviest French-English, English-French dictionary that I could borrow from the library.  I wore the dresses and loved them.  I don’t think that I opened the dictionary.

What a wonderful trip! Just thinking about the people we met, the little adventures that we had and the places we visited is making me smile right out loud right here in my row house in Camden.  Thinking about being twenty years old is making me smile, too. 

Happy Anniversary to me!  Happy Anniversary to all the students who got on the plane that day and to Mr. and Mrs. Alminde who were brave enough to chaperone!  Hooray to happy memories!

 

Marguerite Ferra

Writing from Cramer Hill

PS  It was my friend’s birthday, too.  What a great birthday for you, Linda…  Love you!  We had so much fun, didn’t we?