Whoa! A subject I
can discuss which I didn’t cover already: my high school.
Basics. Established in 1946, after the Germans finally
left. The current campus dates from
around the 1960s, supposedly at the former SHAPE facilities, vacant once DeGaulle
took France out of NATO – and SHAPE moved up to Belgium. The school actually has a Lower School (elementary
school), a Middle School (junior high), and Upper School (high school). I went to Marymount, a Catholic school in
Neuilly, for fifth through eighth grade, but since Marymount stopped at eighth
grade, I had to go somewhere else for high school.
Alternatives. Georgetown Prep was the outlier, effectively
a boarding school had I gone. My father
indicated Good Counsel in Wheaton, MD, would have been where I went had we
stayed in Maryland instead of moving to Paris as we did. Had I gone to Georgetown Prep, I would have been
a freshman when Neil Gorsuch was a sophomore and Brett Cavanaugh was a
senior. Maybe going to ASP negatively
impacted my legal career, as I’m not a judge, much less a Supreme Court
justice.
#2 was the Lycee International in St Germain-en-Laye. With all classes in French except for English
and history, that was a non-starter. I
could barely handle French as it was. So
nope.
ASP was the closest thing to an American high school in
Paris, even though it’s actually a private school. So that was an easy choice for me.
IB. Instead of Advanced Placement (AP), I took
the International Baccalaureate program, despite having no intention of attending
college anywhere other than the US. As
it was, I went to the University of Maryland, College Park, my home state university
at its flagship campus in College Park.
IB means three Sub-level courses – for me, those were French,
Math, and Psychology (there is no High Psychology) – and three High level courses
– and for me, English, Biology and History.
The exams are rated from 1-7, 4 being passing and 7 being an A+. I got 4 in French, 4 in Math (though got a 6
on the mock exam), and 6 in Psychology.
On the High classes I got 5 on English and Biology and a SEVEN on History. This is why I went to law school and not
medical school. If I recall correctly,
my IB thesis was on Western European volunteers in the German armed forces in
WWII.
Sports. I wasn’t particularly athletically
inclined. The only sport I played was
rugby, which for our school in Europe was the equivalent of football. As mid-height and stocky, I played forward: at some point I played most positions except
hooker or eight man, but as a practical matter I was usually flanker or second
row. I went on one trip to Brussels –
Chris Bren bought me my first beer (probably a Stella Artois). But I wasn’t among the varsity elite and not
invited to their parties. I’m not even
listed as a member of the team in the yearbook, although I show up in the
pictures. And I did get a letter (P) on my letter jacket... which I still have. (It barely fits.)
I tried rugby at UMCP, but the school was so huge, with a
top level football team which effectively excluded most of the male student
body, that the rugby team was overstocked relative to other schools. That being the case, the Terp team could be
extremely selective. After banging up my
finger, I gave up. I suppose that finger
injury was lucky, as I didn’t screw up my anterior cruciate ligament.
Other Extracurricular Activities. Mainly AD&D & RuneQuest with my brother
and our gamer buddies Myles & Eoin, Jean, Sean, Sean & Phil.
Roscoe’s. I only started going to Roscoe’s, the bar in downtown
Paris where the ASP alumni hang out, when I was back in Paris on semester break
during college in Maryland. The drinking
age in Paris is 14, compared to 21 in the US, so most high school students and all
college students are old enough to drink.
I’d stick with Heineken, whereas the draft beer was Stella Artois. I could usually count on meeting ASP comrades
at Roscoe’s. After we moved back to the
US in 1990, I didn’t have an opportunity to visit Paris again until October
2017, but that short stay was too short to swing by Roscoe’s – the Marine House
on Boetie and the Champs Elysees were as close as I got. If it’s still an ASP-friendly bar, I’d be
happy to know.
Favorite Teachers. Mr. Kite, for freshman English, Mr. Ferguson
for psychology, Mr. Mimmack for history, and Fraulein Delacroix for German,
were my favorites. I was not a trouble
maker, didn’t smoke, drink, or sample the local hashish, and generally got
along well with most teachers and students.
Late Bus & SNCF. When I first started at ASP, we were living at
the Embassy Compound at Neuilly. For those
of you less familiar with Paris, that’s a suburb right next to Paris (“banlieu”),
to the northwest. That compound is two
four-story buildings, a few blocks away from the Bois de Boulogne. There’s a Boulogne Compound as well, three
three-story buildings – down to the southwest of Paris. I recall the first time we drove past it – I had
no clue it existed. But the buildings
are the same architecture and style as the Neuilly Compound, just three stories
instead of four. Wait, is that
ours? It can’t be, those buildings only have
three floors, and there were three, not two, of them. MIND. BLOWN.
Our Embassy Fourth of July parties & fireworks (courtesy of the
Marines) were there. That and Halloween (trick
or treating, a tradition unknown amongst the French at that time, i.e. 1979-82)
were our occasions to visit the Boulogne Compound. I later learned my ASP buddy Phil, with whom
I’m still friends today, lived there at some time, so we may have been in the same
place at the same time and not even known it.
Just like we were in the same Webelos den in Paris without even
realizing it. Weren’t we amazing? I know, right?
Anyhow. With lots
of Compound Kids going to ASP, the school bus wasn’t a problem. There were the usual buses after classes ended,
and then a later bus, aka The Late Bus, which took us home if we had extracurricular
activities like rugby.
In May or so of 1984, we moved from the Neuilly Compound
to an apartment in Paris itself, the upper Eighth Arrondisement, on Boulevard
Malesherbes. The bus route for school
was such that we – my brother and I - were the only ones at that stop. So the bus driver wasn’t too diligent about
picking us up.
We soon learned that the local train station, Gare St. Lazare,
was about the same distance from our apartment, in the opposite direction, as
the bus stop. Not only that, the train
ran directly to St. Cloud & Garches, the commuter train stops nearest ASP
itself. A direct route! More mind blowing. And if we got a Carte Orange – “orange card” –
this gave us unlimited access to the trains AND the Paris Metro, a flat rate for
all public transportation for a full month. Awesome.
There were three daily trains: 8:00 (only as far as St. Cloud, needed a bus
to get to school), 8:15, and 8:30. The 8:15
train got us to Garches at 8:40, plenty of time to walk to school and get there
before first period at 8:50 a.m. The
8:30 train would get you to class late.
If you missed the 8:15 train, you could get the 8:30 train. If you missed the 8:30 train, the next train
wasn’t until 9:15 or so. Good luck with
that: you’d miss the first two periods, assuming you actually cared.
All well and fine for that. But here’s the kicker. That aforementioned “late bus”, which came
all the way to the Compound, did NOT come all the way to Blvd.
Malesherbes. Nope, it went as close as the
E-TOILE and then went off somewhere else.
So I’d have to take the Metro from the E-TOILE to Villiers, our closest
stop. Since FNAC-Wagram was right there,
I simply stopped there, with my Walkman, and walked all the way home from
Wagram, past Parc Monceau (where the Communards were executed in May 1871). Don’t you love history?
This meant, instead of worrying about catching a late bus
which still meant a Metro trip, just taking whichever train came by after
school - which would take us to Gare St. Lazare - was the better deal. Well, I’d hit FNAC or Virgin on some other day. Switching to the train was the best deal
overall. Thank you, SNCF!
Bottom line….
Spending 4 years at Georgetown Prep and being
on the Supreme Court? Or 4 more years in
Paris and just being another attorney in Virginia? I think I’ll take 4 more years of Paris.
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