It Went Thataway... part 9

Chapter by Chapter Autobiography

Le Rosey

Back to the age of real innocence, me at thirteen in ’63. I took the flight from London, Heathrow with Michael bound for Geneva, panicked over starting another new school, one which Michael had always described as tough, demanding, and not without bullying. Now, just to be candid, I have to admit that every return to le Rosey for the next five years, leaving a loving family of mom, dad, brothers and places where I could experience a new city and learn, feel and act freely, always was a sad time. More often than not, for a few years I would cry myself to sleep that first night. So would most of my classmates. Boarding school is always a wrench, emotionally and physically.

And then day two, your friends, teachers, and closeness of the overall feeling of home pervades. I loved le Rosey back then and still do to this day. I cherish all my memories and especially my love, absolute love, for my comrades, many of whom I am still close to. Le Rosey was a boys-only boarding school for 180 pupils, ages 9-18, that had a main campus in Rolle on the shores of Lac Leman in the fall and again in spring. In the winter the whole school decamped to Gstaad in the Alps. The school motto is “Mens sans in corpore sano.” And they take that seriously.

Four days a week there were eight 45-minute classes divided into five after breakfast, then lunch, then two hours of sports, followed by three classes before dinner. After dinner you had study hall for 90 minutes until you were 15, then after 15 you had to study in your room for up to 3 hours. On Wednesday and Saturday you only had the morning classes and then the afternoon off (if you weren’t punished with being consigned to study hall). Every week you were handed 5 Swiss francs as pocket money. You were not allowed any other money ever. Free time in Rolle consisted of walking down to the little town and buying a patisserie and a coke or, if you were short of funds, staying on campus getting up a game of baseball with fellow American kids. In Gstaad, the Saturday routine was usually the same except for a wonderful treat – Gstaad had a movie theater. Oh, my God, I do not think I will ever have the same experience anywhere as seeing Goldfinger with dozens of fellow Roseans, each and every one of us in rapt admiration. Of course, The Pink Panther had the same effect. To this day, Claudia Cardinale is remembered as the favorite pin-up many of us shared.

Skiing, in the winter term, proved to be difficult for me. I was ungainly, big, strong, but not a casse-cou, a daredevil, in any way. The concept of hurtling down the piste in a racing tuck struck me as stupid. But le Rosey wanted racers. Eventually, I got good at power turns and went fast enough for any piste (always hated the hard work on moguls), but never enjoyed the sport and was miserable at racing. Then a wonderful ski-teacher, Mme. Caillat (one of the first Swiss woman Olympians), who was teaching my younger brother Paul on holiday saw me race past. She took off, yelled at me, and told me to meet her back at the top but to stop skiing immediately. I coasted down to the telecabine and went sheepishly back to the top of the Eggli. She met me there and asked to see my skis. I handed them to her.

Back then le Rosey wanted us to be racers, so Hermanjat’s were told to equip us with appropriate stiff, hard edged, skis, 7½ feet long, well above my head. Placed together, my skis could not be closed to be flat together. She examined them and threw them to the ground telling me to meet her at Hermanjat’s, the ski pro shop that afternoon. I did as I was told. Maybe I was 18, but you didn’t cross Mme. Caillat.

Kubi Hermanjat, the owner, was being harangued by Mme. Caillat and was trying to explain he sold what the school wanted him to sell. She was having none of it. Within an hour, I had a rented pair of K2 super flexible skis, a pair of boots that were not causing blood blisters (the school’s Molitor boots always caused blisters, it made a man out of kids, supposedly) and I was informed she would be giving me a lesson next morning at 10 sharp, atop the Eggli.

Okay, next morning, I was all kitted up, waiting for her as her telecabine arrived at the top. She clipped in her boots, pushed off and told me to wait then follow as she carved beautiful, graceful esses down the hill, then stopped and watched me. I set off, started to carve a turn and spun twice around and fell. Good God, I didn’t put any effort into the turn and I spun like an ice-skater. She was laughing. From then on, skiing was always fun, safe, just as fast and always controllable. Equipment in skiing, as with most use of equipment in life, is central to your ability and execution. Lesson learned.

Insofar as education is concerned, le Rosey was always on top of the game. Excellent teachers for the most part, a huge variety of subjects, constant testing and exams, never a free period and, if I remember properly, I don’t think I was ever allowed less than eight subjects. Math, physics, chemistry, art, biology, history, English, English lit, French, Geography, French lit, and, if I was allowed, other languages. German was forbidden to Michael and me, war remembrances making enforceable edicts from the family. For a few years I took Art (which I loved with M. Stickel), we had calisthenics twice a week before lunch with M. Zurcher (who drove us hard and was always a fair father figure), and I remember loving coaching the Juniors rowing, learning tennis on clay courts, weightlifting (a solo endeavor, but encouraged by M. Zurcher), basketball in the fall term, athletics in the summer term along with swimming.

Several teachers stand out. One was Mr. Cobb who drummed history, mostly British, into us four days a week. Then on Friday he always read from a series of books he had called They Saw It Happen. These books, I still have them, contained essays or first-hand accounts of pivotal events in history written contemporaneously. Once you read the true account of the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, you never dismiss the violence or impact of why and how it was done.

M. Vuilleumier was my French teacher for 5 years. Every day was a vocabulary test, dictation, and verbal exam. Every day, six days a week. Never cross, always strict, but with a wry smile, he instructed older forms of French, proper French. Yes, I am lost at times these days listening to modern “argot” French on the radio but I can still speak and make myself understood and not laughed at (too much).

Mr. Wakeford was my math teacher for two years. Fresh out of a Masters degree in Oklahoma, he wanted a few years abroad. Le Rosey was a holiday for him. He’d arrive late to class (math was the first class of the day), sometimes hungover, always helpful out of class and he always made math fun. We asked him what he did for his master thesis. “Underwater basket-weaving.” We all laughed. In ’84, 27 years later, I was at NASA in Houston, watching the huge water facility there as astronauts practiced underwater simulating weightlessness while using power tools. In a weightless environment the torque of the drill could spin a suited astronaut, so they had to learn the settings, learn how to thread ropes and cables, in that environment. The technician teaching them explained the technique was based on mathematic formulas calculated years before in a thesis in Oklahoma… you guessed it, Mr. Wakeford’s underwater basket weaving.

So, you can see that the education I got was rounded, intelligent, well-exposed to real world events, tragedies, charitable work (rescuing the Venice library after a flood), country walks for miles and miles, and a safe place to learn how to lust after women, learn how crushes affect your very existence, and to conduct yourself equally with all fellow humans, no matter where they were from. Le Rosey had 45 nationalities when I was there, so I made strong friends with Czechs, Spaniards, French, Italians, Brazilians, Argentinians, Bermudians, Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs, Congolese, Ecuadorians, Japanese, Belgians, English, Scots (and there is a difference within Britain), Venezuelans and many more. I had trials of adolescence, periods when I broke all sorts of laws, like throwing a string bomb that exploded and broke windows 100 yards away, snuck out and raided the food storage for potatoes to help my brother make illicit French fries in the dorm at night, covered for my roommate Theo pretending he was asleep when he was actually on a late night sleep over with his girlfriend Bettina, and overall had a full teenage experience always controlled by three things: Boundaries, respect, friendship, learning.

I made friends back then, pals who became more than friends, brothers. In my second term Martin Groak became a roommate and to this day we’re as close as possible. He even agreed to be the best man at Sandy’s and my wedding, in ’72. Martin’s father was an amazing man, the inventor of the microdot for spy work in WWII and thereafter invented NCR carbonless copy paper. He would allow me to tease him during meals, always knowing I held him in the highest regard. The man was a genius, much like his sons and daughter.

There are so many friends I met and have stayed in touch with over the years, many of whom I have mentioned already. Le Rosey was a large family, with some older brothers like Ahmed Yehia, Jeff Werner, and Tom Pierpoint, and almost all of my classmates like the genius Doug Stewart, empathetic Georgio Nizzola, the Sicre boys, Mike Theodorou (a magnet to women), Rick Flaata, Alex Instanbullu (who became a great architect), and Atilio Brillenbourg from Venezuela.

The school had a strict punishment program consisting of consignment (study hall on free afternoons Wednesday or Saturday) or full disprivilegement which meant you were not going anywhere off campus for the weekend, kind of like confinement to your room. Some of my friends were fairly used to the latter punishment. Benjamin, for example, was always getting up to pranks or worse. Nothing malicious, just proving his capability over the headmaster’s rules. One day he went too far, seeing the safe key where exam papers were kept until needed. Too much temptation. An impression and then a copy was made. Through the window at 2am, we watched him open the safe, remove the papers, never look at them, and put them back with a small note that said, “Merci!” All hell broke loose the next day. And the fake key? He hid it under a roof tile. A year later after graduation I checked and it was still there.

Jim Houghton, he of Emmy award fame and brother to Mona who joined us in ‘67, broke the rules on the senior floor where, after lights out, there was no permission to leave your room and visit one another, even for study work. As the rooms were in the eaves on the third floor, Jim would go out his window, walk along the gutter and visit friends. One day he slipped and fell onto the concrete below. Smashed wrist and serious bruising, some internal. And the outcome? He was dispriveledged for two weekends and, as Mlle. Schaub the directrice stood at lunch to explain his punishment she simply pronounced, “It is forbidden to fall from the roof!” The laughter from us kids did not go down well.

Meals at school were first class, but each student had to serve as a waiter once a term. Breakfast was yoghurt, fresh bread, jam, and coffee or tea. Lunch was always soup followed by a meat or fish dish with two veg, and a pudding, fruit, or blancmange dessert. Dinner the same. The red letter days were anything that came with French fries – unlimited bowls placed on the table.

Once I was lucky to escape more serious punishment. Summer term had ended and my flight and my Congolese roommate’s flight was the next day, so we had idle time to waste. At 17 we went into Rolle, bought a bottle of booze with some of our travel cash, got bombed and barely made the flight the next day. Kind floor teachers Mr. and Mrs. Rogers made sure to wake us in time for our flights and, headaches or not, Flavian Kasavubu and I were still reprimanded for loud singing, waking the couple at night.

When I was 17, I decided that Sandy, my future wife, needed to be closer. I had another year at le Rosey and why didn’t she get into Montesano School in Gstaad as a finishing school? I convinced her parents and in January (after a bout of scarlet fever) she showed up. We were thrilled, then we broke up for four months, then got back together before the year was over. She dated a nice classmate of mine for a while, I sowed some wild oats, but both of us knew our breakup was just teen issues.

My brother got suspended once and almost kicked out another time. The first time, aged 17, he and a roommate, after term had ended, brought two local girls up to the dorm rooms for a night. Next morning, M. Zurcher tore into them and yet never reported a thing. The next time, coming back from spring vacation in ‘67, a clique Michael belonged to, good friends all, Reza, Theo, Strat, and Jim, decided to raid the girls’ school next door, La Combe. A panty raid, nothing happened other than some windows broken by exuberant rock tossing to get the girls’ attention, but Michael, instead, chose to paint the genitals of the Apollo statue on the grounds bright red. Always the scenic designer. Police were called for the break-in (windows), his shoes (he wasn’t wearing) were sniffed out by police dogs, so he spent the night in jail. Mom showed up, threatened to close the school for allowing her son to be arrested, but the school wanted him to fink on the other “miscreants.” He refused, doomed to be expelled. A compromise was reached with the directrice Mlle. Schaub chastising the headmaster Louis Johannot for the police raid on a minor, Michael was suspended for the rest of the term and had to come back for one more year. So Michael and I graduated together.

The only shortfall of being in close proximity of 180 boys was that if one guy got flu, shortly it swept through the whole school. The 6 bed infirmary could not cope, so we were restricted to our dorm rooms, those who were well looking after the unwell. These epidemics really messed with sports and school schedules, and the one time when LIFE magazine turned up to do a feature article of “the school of kings.” Such a silly title, none of us felt there were kings at le Rosey, although there were a few princes. LIFE staged a mock snowball fight with those not down with flu, outside my dorm building, and soon those still fit enough all decided that the LIFE photographer made a better target. The article never mentioned the damage to his equipment which, judging from his cursing, may have been extensive.

Just before my last year at Le Rosey, the school decided it was time to go co-ed. The administration negotiated with, listened to our suggestions and then went ahead as they always planned for the ’67 fall term. Fortunately, the plan they had decided was smart, very smart. They were going to introduce girls class by class from the oldest down, one age group a year. So, in my final year, the girls arrived. And oh, my (as George Takai would say), oh, my.

Every single one of them was lovely, smart, not at all stand-offish, friendly, and patient with us hormone-laced boys. To this day I remain deeply fond of and in contact with Leslie Newman and Honey Sharp. School parties were even more interesting, who was with whom and why. Up in Gstaad in the Palace Hotel, in the Hi-Fi Discotheque which we had been infesting for years, the competition with the local Montesano girls was on full display and yet, and yet, these sophisticated girls were above all that, they fitted right in, there was harmony. And because our school had only infested our classes with same age girls, there was no seniority pecking order. Friendships were formed, flirting abounded, jokes became often ribald, but no one got hurt, shamed, ostracized, or singled out like we had heard (and some had experienced) in other schools. Many of us are still fast friends, to this day.

There was one exception to all that “good behavior.” Because teens will be teens, some romances evolved that were not in keeping with school regulations, and at times teachers had to remind us young men to behave properly. It was always the girl’s fault though. To quote a sit-com when a guy is trying to explain why he was caught with a partially dressed girl in his room when he knew it was forbidden, “Because she let me.” Haha.

After graduation, a great student – who had been asked to leave because he had little regard for the rules of the day – ahem – Craig Francis loaned his parent’s mansion estate on the shore of Lake Geneva near Nyon for the senior graduating party. Everything was going perfectly, everyone warm, friendly, drinking too much perhaps, very close dancing, and secrets revealed in case we never saw one another ever again, until Craig’s spectacular Corvette was borrowed in the very early dawn to catch a morning flight, with three aboard and flipped at a hundred and twenty on the lake road towards Geneva. Sobering word spread quickly. Everyone pitched in to clean up the whole property, all the glasses and empties cleaned and cleared, floors vacuumed, quick showers for hygiene and a personal tidy up awaiting for authorities, no doubt on the way. Desperate calls were made to see if our friends were injured… only the person in the middle, without seatbelt of course, was cut by the flying ashtray. Somehow the car stood up to that massive crash. Later that morning, with police in attendance we viewed the accident, a telephone pole sliced through ten feet above ground and the grass verge plowed for a hundred meters.

Now it has to be said that my brother Michael, who had no interest in the party nor perhaps intimacy with the school new girl arrivals, never knew about his three friends in the accident until years later. When he found out, he called them, each separately, and commiserated and, true to a big brother mentality, then told them in no uncertain manner, they were idiots.

The year before his last year at le Rosey, Michael had fallen in love with an amazing girl, Laura Bernard and they were joined at the hip. Laura became and remains my close friend. I call her Sis. Michael and Laura fell apart in ’70 when I was away at UCLA and, had I not been away, I would have tried to help repair the rift. I know that Michael – who went on to be married several times to lovely women and fathered three great boys – always carried a torch for Laura. As well he should, she’s exceptional. And all through his last year at le Rosey, they were a firm, idolized, beautiful couple.

And even with all that distraction, the learning at le Rosey was so good that when we Americans took the SATs to try and enter American colleges and universities, I got 725 overall as well as a Maths A level from Cambridge, and my classmates did equally as well. Without the first clue of a career path, as I enjoyed math, I only applied to three universities: MIT, CalTech and Carnegie. I got in at all three but chose Carnegie because a good friend Tom Pierpoint went there. On arrival they made me sit an exam to decide which grade I belonged in. They put me, aged 18, into the Junior year. Think that was impressive? Think again. The kids at le Rosey who were doing the French Baccalauréat or the Swiss Maturité were years ahead of us, years. That fact has always been a check on my ego.

Mens sana – a sound mind – indeed.