The American College of Switzerland Zoo. James E. Henderson
megalomania with the Napoleonic twist of occasionally tucking his right hand into his vest. When I had first visited the school and fallen in love with the mountain, he had paraded me around the school extolling its virtues when all I wanted to do was get signed up. His description of the library was so effuse that I was astounded when he walked me into the large coat closet that held the school’s three hundred or so books. My boarding school library was a little larger, and Earlham’s library was a three-story building. He didn’t understand when I asked how one would research a paper but suggested that the Montreux library had several dozen books in English that I could use to supplement my research. What did that mean? I would have to get off the mountain and go twenty K’s around Lac Léman only to find thirty-six or forty-eight more books on a variety of topics!
I was concerned because I was going to have to make good grades that year, and, at Earlham, good grades required a lot of study and research. My freshman grades weren’t good; I was on academic probation. I had played soccer, been in the model UN, helped build the freshman homecoming float, and done a dozen other things instead of studying last year, so I was determined to make up for that on this mountain. Plus, the draft board was on my ass; if I didn’t get my grades in shape, I would be in a fight to get my conscientious objector status, and, with a colonel in the army for a father, that might be a tough fight. If unsuccessful, I’d be on the next plane to Vietnam.
The dean was also my English teacher. His class was so basic that I was worried that it wouldn’t be accepted for credit back at Earlham. He was teaching us how to organize and write an analytical paper, a course I had taken in high school and was an ability that was required to pass freshman English. I dropped out of his class at the end of the fall quarter. This was a difficult move given that he was the academic dean. The upshot was I got to take a few more interesting courses.
The teachers were an odd assortment of characters, but just think about what might motivate a person to teach in an unaccredited junior college perched on an Alp. There were skiers, players, refugees, and, possibly, a hidden bodyguard or two. After all, there were a lot of rich kids, but only the prince had his own visible protection.
After dropping out of English, I took political philosophy with Mr. Connolly, a tall, good-looking man who appeared to have been born on skis. In class, he had a tendency to wax philosophical. If fact, his classes were very enjoyable when we could lead him into some tangent of life in the seventeenth, eighteenth, or nineteenth centuries that dealt with the idiosyncrasies of historic personalities and had little to do with politics.
Basic French was taught by Madame Bailet, a very attractive older woman with blonde hair, an inviting smile, and a very sexy walk. I paid close attention in French class. She was married to Monsieur Bailet, also a French teacher, who was as handsome as she was beautiful. What a couple! Wilds caught the rumor that the two of them took separate vacations. It seems Madame Bailet would go to Paris to take a few lovers, and Monsieur Bailet would stay in Leysin and educate a few willing coeds. I fanaticized about their reversing their vacation plans. Another rumor was that she had entertained Roark on more than one occasion.
My history teacher, Mr. Coates, was a chain smoker. He would light one cigarette from the last to be sure he had a lit one at all times. He waved his cigarettes when he lectured and rarely took a puff. It was also notable that his hands were so steady he could hold an ash that was three-fourths the length of the cigarette! Mr. Coates was a drinker and had promised more than one student an “A” if the student could outdrink him. I suspect that history was the only “A” that Jolie ever got in college. I got my grades the old-fashioned way: I worked for them… when I wasn’t skiing or drinking.
Mr. Van Vuuren, my art teacher, had been a South African commando in a previous life. I saw him launch himself six feet into the air and hang horizontally, then kick down at an imagined opponent’s head in an attempt to knock it from its shoulders. He would land lightly facing the opponent and launch back up in the opposite direction. Stallone had seen the same performance and gave a grunt that I interpreted as an acknowledgement of superior firepower. When I told Willie about the demonstration, he said that Van Vuuren’s fellow commando worked in Geneva as a bouncer in a large nightclub. Willie said this guy wore an oversized suit to make him appear smaller and was pushed around the club in a wheel chair by a body builder. When trouble started, the commando launched up from the wheel chair seven or eight feet into the air. The body builder was there just to steady the wheel chair.
Mr. Van Vuuren was an artist and enjoyed his craft. He encouraged and expanded my painting skills while cluing me into the fact that most painters don’t get rich. Art was for enjoyment, but successful careers were few and far between. Baby John excelled in painting. Alice was also in art class, and her works were quite creative and pretty, but, where Baby John and I were working on three- by five-foot canvases, Alice’s efforts were, as one might expect, tiny!
I audited Madame Linden’s French living class. Basic French was taking me to a level that I could use to communicate, but Madame Linden taught us about fine wines and dining. It was fun, and she told great stories! She was born in Russia and had been a wealthy actress who escaped the Bolshevik revolution by going over the border to Poland. She was in Poland when the Germans overran it, so she slipped through Germany into France. In Paris, a bomb had destroyed her dressing room, and she gave up the stage. She later moved to and stayed in Switzerland.
The exceptions to the general state of the teachers were our two PhDs: Dr. O’Brian and Dr. Zagier. Dr. O’Brien was excited by his specialty, international relations. He was a focused, thoughtful lecturer who could bring out the best in a student who was willing to listen, and I listened. In fact, because of him, I changed my major to political science and my career focus. Eight months in his classes and I wanted to become a foreign-relations specialist for an international firm. In addition to his international relations course, I also audited his course on the European Economic Community. My ability to keep up with class was aided by the fact that either Imad or Ibrahim had dropped out and given me his books. As a result of the course, I became a supporter of the European Union. Well… I had an EU sticker on my car when I returned to the States! Also, the only research paper I put together at ACS was on my predictions of the future of the European state and its competition with the U.S. economy. I was even able to find several books for my research in Dr. O’Brien’s library.
Dr. Zagier was Dean Zagier’s wife. You know, I believe that it was in Dr. Zagier’s psychology class that I learned that the dean’s mannerisms were symptomatic of a massive inferiority complex. The good doctor also happened to be a full head taller than the dean and an excellent, knowledgeable, experienced professor. In addition, she was a practicing psychologist in Montreux or Lausanne. I got straight A’s in her class in the winter quarter before she decided to commit herself to a mental hospital. Her husband, the dean, took over, and he sat in class day after day reading from the text, unable to answer anything not covered in the book. I made all A’s on his tests but got a C as my spring quarter grade. My complaints fell on deaf ears, as he was the academic dean.
ACS was a college, I guess, although the classes didn’t approach the academic rigors of my stateside college and, in fact, often reminded me of in-depth high-school courses. Most of the tests were multiple guess and right out of the book. Essay tests involved spouting back the teacher’s words. Other than in political philosophy and in psychology with Dr. Zagier, no one expected you to think during tests. I wrote only one paper, and it was limited because of the lack of research material on the subject in the library. Other than a desire to make good enough grades to raise my GPA and avoid the draft, I can’t say that I cared much about my studies. Therefore, I will just bullet typical school days before, after, and during ski season to get that over with!
School Life – Fall and Spring (before and after the ski season)
9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. classes in the main
4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Sports and occasional homework
6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. – have a beer at Le Nord and a game of zim-zim (foosball)
8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. – finish homework – when finished have another beer
School Life – The Ski Season