Life Lessons

For 10 adventurous students in the 1961-62 Junior Year Program—including Andrea Cousins ’63, pictured at a neighborhood newsstand—the streets of Paris became as familiar as the streets of New York. Mary “Mollie” Falk ’63 reflected on life along the Seine for the spring 1962 Sarah Lawrence Alumnae Magazine. Below are a few of her vivid memories.

The supermarket à l’Americain exists in Paris … which sells everything from Coca-Cola to pate-de-foie to woolen underwear. The customers wander along neon-lit chromium aisles carrying yellow plastic shopping baskets. … The traditional small “épicerie” … is considerably pleasanter. … There is something very heartening about the un-cellophane-wrapped, un-glass-enclosed array of cheeses and fruits. …

For a more luxurious dinner we sometimes go to the restaurant de Beaux-Arts, where a complete steak dinner costs a dollar or less. … Harassed waitresses pass in front of oil paintings long blackened by smoke and grease, carrying our artichokes, chateaubriands, and the mousse au chocolat we absolutely should not have. Were we to go there more often, we would become “regulars” entitled to a napkin and napkin ring. …

There are still moments of exasperation … when, for instance … the shower is too icy for even the most determined mortifier of the flesh. And yet we come to feel that there is some[thing] terribly human about the uncertainty and inconvenience, about the radiator’s chronic indispositions, about the slightly peeling paint, and the jumble of extension cords. …

Certainly, there is the Paris where civilization is pushed to its furthest limits, but there is also the Paris of workers, shopkeepers, and “fonctionaires,” a great provincial city carrying its fresh bread through the streets.